1 ^32. University of Caiitornia. FROM THE LIBRARY OF DR. FRANCIS LIEBER, Professor of History and Law in Columbia College, Now York. I THE GIFT OF MICHAEL REESE, Of San Francisco. 1S73. MiHWjBIUWLUtll — > hts. Library ^ c»Hft»Tm^: THE HISTORY OF IRELAND THOMAS MOORE, ESQ. *-^ ^ ^ CAREY, LEA, & BLANCHARD. 1835. y^ ^ •S2> \A fo 3"= y ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLCXJICAL TABLE OF THE HISTORY OF IRELAND. VOL. I. CHAPTER I. B .c. Page 1000. Celtic Origin of the Irish 11 Different Fortunes of Ireland and Britain II Phojnician Intercourse with the Irish 12 The Belgffi, or Fir-boJgs 12 Objections answered ; Authority of Tacitus 13 Homer's Knowledge of Isles beyond the Pillars from the Phoeni- cian Voyagers 14 The Argonautics ; Ireland named lernis 15 A Work of the Age of Aristotle names the two chief British Isles, Albion and lerne 15 The Phoenicians keep their Trade secret 15 The Western or Tin Isles first explored by the Massilian Greeks 16 The Periplus of Hanno 16 Characteristic Features of Ancient Ireland 17 Inscription at Tangiers 18 Authority of Herodotus 18 Ancient Ireland better known than Britain ; Authorities 19 Geography of Ptolemy 19 Tacitus ; Life of Agricola 20 Intercourse of Ireland with the Phoenician Spaniards 21 The Title, Sacred Isle ; Authority of Plutarch ; Diodorus Siculus 22 Geography of Strabo ; Ireland likened to Samothrace 23 -, Traditions of Ireland ; Intercourse with Gallicia 23 • Opinions of Antiquaries 24 CHAPTER II. The earliest Superstitions traceable in the Monuments of Ire- land 25 Three Stages of Superstition 26 Magi, or Druids 26 Sun Worship 27 Moon Worship 28 Fire and Water Worship 29 Sacred Fountains 29 The Field of Slaughter ; Child-sacrifice 30 1* VI ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. B. c. Page Round Towers of Ireland 31 Opinions about theni 32 Christian Emblems on those of Swords and Donoughmore. ... 34 Probably Fire-Temples 34 Connexion of Sun-Worship with Astronomy 37 The Round Towers called Celestial Indexes 37 Beyond the reach of Historical Record 39 Other ancient Monuments of Ireland ; the Cromleach 39 The Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny 41 Rocking Stones 41 Sacred Hills 43 The Dynasts inaugurated thereon 44 Barrows and Cairns 45 Sacred Groves and Trees 46 CHAPTER III. Irish Druidism ; of a mixed Character 48 Different from that of Gaul, as recorded by the Romans 49 British Druids not mentioned by Cssar ; tlie Inference 50 Early Heathen Pre-eminence of Ireland 52 CHAPTER IV. Learning of the Irish Druids ; Ancient Language 53 Phoenician and Irish Alphabets 54 Early Use of Letters in Ireland 56 Proofs thereof 56 Ogham Character 57 Introduction of the Roman Character 62 Mistaken Identity of the Irish Language with the Punic of Plautus 63 Astronomical Skill of the Irish Druids 65 CHAPTER V. Opposite Opinions respecting ancient Ireland 68 Mixture of Truth and Fable 70 Fabulous Accounts of Partholan 70 The Fir-bolgs 71 The Tuatha-de-Danaan 73 Milesian or Scotic Race 73 CHAPTER VI. Colonization of Ireland 75 Spanish Settlers 75 Supposed Gaulish Colony 77 (Question whether the Belgae were Celtic or Teutonic 77 Colonization of the south-western Parts from Spain 79 Various Spanish Colonies 79 The Scythic or Scotic Settlements 81 Fabulous Accounts by the Bards 83 Recent Date of the Scotic Colony 84 Proofs thereof 84 Antiquarian Errors 89 The Picts 90 The ancient Britons and Welsh probably not the same Race. . . 91 Radical Differences between the Gaelic and Cumraig 91 The Picts were the Progenitors of the Welsh 93 Of Cimbric Origin 93 Romances of the Round Table 94 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. VU CHAPTER VII. B. c. Page 200. Reign of Kimbaoth 96 Of Heber and Heremon, Sons of Milesius 97 First Coming of the Picts 98 Gold Mines 99 Classes distinguished by Colours 100 The royal Legislator, Ollamh Fodhla 100 His Institutions ; Convention of Tara 100 Chronicle of Events ; Psalter of Tara 101 Palace of Emania 102 Reign of Hugony the Great 103 A. D. 2. Reign of Conary the Great ; Ossianic Poems 104 40. Privileges of the Bards ; abused by them 105 The Bardic Order reformed ; Conquovar 105 75—82. Expedition of Agricola to Britain 106 An Irish Traitor in the Roman Camp 107, 108 The Irish aid the Picts against the Romans 108 Belgic Revolt and Massacre 109 90. Carbre Cat-can raised to the Throne 109 Disinterestedness of his Son Moran ; Moran's Collar 110 126. Second Revolt (of the Atticots) 110 130. Tuathal the Acceptable Ill Assembled States at Tara Ill Boarian Tribute 112 164. Jurisprudence ; the Eric 113 Feidlim the Legislator ; Con of the Hundred Battles 114 258. Irish Settlement in Argyleshire ; Carbry Riada 115 The Irish exclusively called Scoti ; North Britain called Albany 116 Cormac Ulfadha 116 His Accomplishments and Achievements 117 State of Religion 118 Recluse Druidesses 118 Fin-Mac -Cumhal, by Moderns called Fingal 119 Oisin and Osgar 119 The Fianna Eirinn, or Militia of Ireland 120 Slaughter of them 121 Groundless Pretensions of Scotch Writers ; Forgeries of Boece 122 Fabric of Buchanan, Mackenzie, &c 123 Destroyed by StillingHeet 124 Forgeries of Macpherson 124 Examination thereof. 126 Historic Value of the Imposture 129 None but Irish Books among the Highlanders 129 Long Connexion of the Irish and Highlanders 130 Expedition of Theodosius 131 327. Battle of Dubcomar ; the Druid of the Bloody Hand 131, 132 A six Days' Battle 132 396. Irish Invasion of Britain 132 Nial of the Nine Hostages 133 Passes from Britain to Armoric Gaul. 134 Providential Captivity of an Armorican Youth 134 406. Datliy, the last Pagan King of Ireland 134 CHAPTER VIII. Credibility of Irish Annals ; Tigernach ; the Four Masters 135 Nennius and Geoffry of Monmouth 136 Collation of Annals 137 Reception of Christianity in Ireland 141 Its easy Adoption 142 Record of Events continued 143 Its Authenticity I45 VUl ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. CHAPTER IX. . D. Page Early State of the Heathen Irish 148 Features visible to this Day 148 Partition of Sovereignty 149 Succession ; Tanistry 149 Exchange of Subsidy and Tribute 150 Cause of Discords 152 And of the Want of a National Spirit 152 Division of Lands and Goods upon each elective Succession. .. 154 Gavelkind ; Females excluded 155 Natural Children admitted with legitimate 155 Custom of Slavery 158 Social Contracts - 158 Urged respectively in support of adverse Opinions 159 Examination of Authorities 160 Ancient Contrasts of Manners visible at the Close of the last Century in Ireland 163 The early Britons of ill Repute like the Irish 164 Testimony of St. Jerome 164 Early Irish Navigation ; Currachs 166 Himilco's Voyage 166 The great Road from Galway to Dublin 167 The great Road from Dover to Anglesey, called " the Way of the Irish" 167 The Inference 167 . The Irish Raths or Hill-fortresses 168 Curious and costly Remains dug up 173 Coal Works 173 Swords of Brass like those found at CanniE 174 CHAPTER X. Mission of St. Patrick 175 His Success with little Violence 176 His judicious Conduct 176 Adopts the Pagan Customs 176 The Heresiarchs, Pelagius and Celestus 178 Palladius 181 Sketch of the Life of St. Patrick 181 Born near the Site of Boulogne-sur-mer 182 Probably in 387 182 Made captive by Nial of the Nine Hostages 182 403. Carried captive to Ireland 183 Escaped or released from Bondage 183 410. His Studies at Tours 183 His Remembrances and Dreams of Ireland 183 422. Arrives there 185 Sudden Conversion of Dicho 185 His old Master, Milcho, an inveterate Heathen, would not see him 186 His Paschal Fire ; Prophecy of the Magi 186, 187 He preaches at Tara, before the King and States 187 Tolerant Genius of Paganism 187 Revisits the Scene of his Dream 188 Converts two Princesses 188 Destroys the Idol of " The Field of Slaughter" 189 His successful Career 189 Establishes the See of Armagh 193 Writes his Confession 194 465. Dies in his Retreat at Sabhul 194 His Disciples Benignus, Secundinus, &c 195 The Irish Poet Sedulius, or Shiel 196 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. IX CHAPTER XI. i. V. Page Retrospect of Christianity in Britain 197 Britain reluctantly separates from Rome 197 The Letter styled " The Groans of the Britons" 198 The three Devastations of Britain 199 Peaceful Triumphs of Religion in Ireland. 200 500. Establishment of the Sons of Erck in North Britain 201 Power of the Hy-Nial Family 201 Kenneth Mac-Alpine vanquishes the Picts 201 The Apostle Columbkill 202. Historic Use of Lives of Saints ; Montesquieu ; Gibbon. . . 202, 203 Dependence of the Church of Ireland on Rome 203 Mistaken Opinion of Archbishop Usher 203 Prayers for the Dead 204 Pilgrimages 205 Marriage of the Clergy. 205 CHAPTER XXL Parentage of Columbkill 207 Why so named 207 His Labours 208 563. His Mission to the Western Isles 210 572. Death of Conal, King of the British Scots 211 St. Columbkill revisits Ireland 212 Interferes on behalf of the Bards 213 Death of the Saint 214 St. Columbanus, also Irish ; ofteil confounded with him 215 Reign of Diarmid 217 Last Meeting at Tara 217 529. Retrospect of the Institution of Nunneries 219 St. Brigid of Kildare 219 Career of Columbanus abroad 223 He rebukes King Thierry 223 His Courage and Labours 224 610. Arrives at Milan 225 615. Founds the Monastery of Bobbio ; dies ; . . . 227 His Writings 227 CHAPTER Xlll. Paschal Differences 229 630. Letter of Pope Honorius 231 633. Deputation to Rome 232 Its Return and Report 232 Effects of the Controversy beneficial 232 Cummian, an Irish Saint, opposed to Columbanus 232 Mutual Tolerance 233 St. Aidan and King Oswald (Anglo-Saxon); See of Lindisfarne, called the Holy Isle 234 Rapid Succession of Irish Kings ; the Inference 235 Callus founds the Abbey of St. Gall (Switzerland) 236 650. Irish Missionaries in France 237 Irish Missionaries in Brabant ^ ... . 238 Irish Missionaries on the Rhine 239 Solar Eclipse ; the Yellow Plague 239 664. Hospitable Reception of Foreign Students in Ireland 240 Disputation at the Monastery of St. Hilda 240 Controversy of the Tonsure 242 684. Northumbrian Expedition to Ireland 242 King Egfrid, the Aggressor, slain 243 Paschal System of Rome established by Adamnan 243 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. D. Page St. Kilian, Apostle of Franconia 245 Divorce of Geilana by the Persuasion of the Saint 245 She causes him to be waylaid and murdered 245 The Scholastic Philosophy originated with Irish Divines 246 Decay of Irish Learning at the Approach of the Eighth Century 247 Virgilius, or Feargal 247 His Conjecture of the Sphericity of the Earth 248 Accused of Heresy therein 248 Is made a Bishop, and canonized 248 Clement and Albinus, Irish Scholars ; become known to Charle- magne; their curious Device 250 Reference to Denina, Tiraboschi, and Muratori 250, 251 Dungal ; his Letter to Charlemagne 251 Greek Ecclesiastics attracted to Ireland 253 The Saxon Scholar Aldhelm 254 Sedulius the Second and Donatus 255 John Scotus, called Erigena 256 Translates into Latin the Greek Writings supposed of Diony- sius the Areopagite ; his consequent Mysticism 257 His Notions of God and the Soul 258 Denies the Eternity of Punishment 259 Fables of his being known to King Alfred 260 His Character 260 CHAPTER XIV. Review of Learning and the Arts ^ . 262 Value of the Argument of the Want of MSS. Remains 262 Remains preserved by the Annalists 264 Origin and Use of Rhyme 265 Early Connexion of Poetry and Music 266 The Irish Harp 267 Excellence of early Music " 267 Irish Psalmody , 268 Church Architecture 269 State of Agriculture 270 Works in Metal, Stone, and Colours 271 Chariots used in War and Travelling 271 The Brehon Laws 272 f Library. HISTORY OF IRELAND. ^ CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE IRISH PEOPLE. — EARLY NOTICES OF IRELAND. There appears to be no doubt that the first inhabitants of Ireland were derived from the same Celtic stock which supplied Gaul, Britain, and Spain with their original population. Her language, the numerous monuments she still retains of that most ancient superstition which the first tribes who poured from Asia into Europe are known to have carried with them wherever they went, sufficiently attest the true origin of her people. Whatever obscurity may hang round the history of the tribes that followed this first Eastern swarm, and however opinions may still vary, as to whether they were of the same, or of a different race, it seems, at least, cert£?ln, that the Celts were the first inhabitants of the western parts of Europe ; and that, of the language of this most ancient people, the purest dialect now existing is the Irish. It might be concluded, from the near neighbourhood of the two islands to each other, that the fortunes of Britain and Ire- land would, in those times, be similar; that, in the various changes and mixtures to which population was then subject, from the successive incursions of new tribes from the East, such vicissitudes would be shared in common by the two islands, and the same flux and reflux of population be felt on both their shores. Such an assumption, however, would, even as to earlier times, be rash ; and, how little founded it is, as a general conclusion, appears from the historical fact, that the Romans continued in military possession of Britain for near four hundred years, with- out a single Roman, during that whole period, having been known to set foot on Irish ground. The system of Whitaker and others, who, from the proximity of the two islands, assume that the population of Ireland must have been all derived from Britain, is wholly at variance, not merely with probability, but with actual evidence. That, in the general and compulsory movement of the Celtic tribes towards 12 HISTORY OF IRELAND. the west, an island, like Ireland, within easy reach both of Spain and Gaul, should have been left unoccupied during the long interval it must have required to stock England with inhabitants, seems, to the highest degree, improbable. But there exists, independently of this consideration, strong evidence of an early- intercourse between Spain and Ireland, in the historical tradi- tions of the two countries, in the names of the different Spanish tribes assigned to the latter by Ptolemy, and, still more, in the sort of notoriety which Ireland early, as we shall see, acquired, and which could only have arisen out of her connexion with those Phoenician colonies, through whom alone a secluded island of the Atlantic could have become so well known to the world. At a later period, when the Belgic Gauls had gained such a footing in Britain, as to begin to encroach on the original Celtic inhabitants, a remove still farther to the west was, as usual, the resource of this people ; and Ireland, already occupied by a race speaking a dialect of the same language, — the language com- mon, at that period, to all the Celts of Europe, — afforded the refuge from Gothic invasion* which they required. It has been shown clearly, from the names of its mountains and rivers, — those unerring memorials of an aboriginal race, — that the first inhabitants of the country now called Wales must have been a people whose language was the same with that of the Irish, as the mountains and waters of that noble country are called by Irish names.! At what time the Belgce, the chief progenitors of the English nation, began to dispossess the original Celtic in- habitants, is beyond the historian's power to ascertain ; as is also the question, whether those Belgse or Fir-bolgs, who are known * Without entering here into the still undecided question, as to whether the Belgae were Celts or Goths, I shall merely observe, that the fair conclu- sion from the following passage of Ccesar is, that this people were of a Gothic or Teutonic descent. " Cum ab his quaereret, quae civitates quantseque in armis essent, et quid in bello possent, sic reperiebat ; plerosque Belgas esse ortos ab Germanis ; Rhe- numque antiquitus transductos, propter loci fertilitatem ibi consedisse ; Gal- losque, qui ea loca incolerent.expulisse."— Z)c Bell. Gall. lib. ii. c. 4. t Lhuyd's Preface to his Irish Dictionary, in the Appendix to Nicholson's Historical Library.— Lhuyd extends his remark to England as well as Wales. " Whoever takes notice," he says, " of a great number of the names of the rivers and mountains throughout the kingdom, will find no reason to doubt but the Irish must have been the inhabitants when those names were im- posed on them." In other words, the first inhabitants of Britain and Wales were Celts or Gael. The author of Mona Antiqua has, without intending it, confirmed the truth of Lhuyd's remark, by stating, that the vestiges of old habitations still to be seen on the heaths and hills of Anglesey, are called, to this day, Cyttie'r Gwyddelod, or the Irishmen's Cottages. These words, too, it appears (sec Preface to O'Brien's Irish Dictionary), " should more properly and literally be rendered Irishmen's habitations, or seats ; for the Irish word Cathair, of which Ceitir is a corruption, signifies either a city or town, or habitation." IRELAND FIRST INHABITED BY CELTS. 13 to have passed over into Ireland, went directly from Gaul, or were an offset of those who invaded Britain. But however some of the ingredients composing their popula- tion may have become, in the course of time, comnion to both countries, it appears most probable that their primitive inhabi- tants were derived from entirely different sources ; and that, while Gaul poured her Celts upon the shores of Britain, the population of Ireland was supplied from the coasts of Celtic Spain.* It is, at least, certain, that, between these two latter countries, relations of affinity had been, at a very early period, es- tablished ; and that those western coasts of Spain, to which the Celtic tribes were driven, and where afterwards Phoenician colo- nies established themselves, were the very regions from whence this communication with Ireland was maintained. The objections raised to this supposed origin and intercourse, on the ground of the rude state of navigation in those days, are deserving of but little attention. It was not lightly, or without observation, such a writer as Tacitus asserted, that the first colonizing expeditions were performed by water, not by landf ; and however his opinion, to its whole extent, may be questioned, the result of inquiry into the affinities of nations seems to have established, that at no time, however remote, has the interposi- tion of sea presented much obstacle to the migratory dispositions of mankind. The history, indeed, of the Polynesian races, and of their common origin — showing to what an immense extent, over the great ocean, even the simplest barbarians have found the means of wafting the first rudiments of a peoplej — should incline us to regard with less scepticism those coasting and, in general, land-locked voyages, by which most of the early colo- nization of Europe was effected ; — at a period, too, when the Phoenicians, with far more knowledge, it is probable, of the art of navigation, than modern assumption gives them credit * That the Irish did not consider themselves as being of Gaulish origin, appears from their having uniformly used the word Gall to express a foreigner, or one speaking a different language. t Nee terra olim, sed classibus advehebantur, qui mutare sedes quasrebant. ■—Oerman. c. 2. I " A comparison of their languages (those of the Polynesian races) has furnished a proof, that all the most remote insular nations of the Great Ocean derived their origin from the same quarter, and are nearly related to some tribes of people inhabiting a part of the Indian continent, and the isles of the Indian Archipelago."— PritcAard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic JVatiovs. Dr. Kennel, in noticing some doubts respecting the circumnavigation of Africa by the Egyptians, says sensibly, " Since so many of these (ancient) authorities concur in the behalf that Africa had been sailed round, we can- not readily guess why it should be doubted at present, unless the moderns wish to appropriate to themselves all the functions and powers of nautical discovery."— On the Geographical System of Herodotus. Vol. I. 2 14 HISTORY OF IRELAND. for, were to be seen in the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the At- lantic, — every where upon the waters. With respect to the facilities of early intercourse between Ireland and Spain, the distance from Cape Ortegal to Cape Clear, which lie almost opposite to each other, north and south, is not more than 150 leagues, — two thirds of which distance, namely, as far as the island of Ushant, might all have been performed within sight of land.* Reserving, however, all fiirther investigation into this point, till we come to treat of the different colonies of Ire- land, I shall here endeavour to collect such information respect- ing her early fortunes as the few, but pregnant, notices scattered throughout antiquity afford. With one important exception, it is from early Greek writers alone that our first glimpses of the British isles, in their silent course througli past ages, are obtained ; nor was it till a com- paratively late period that the Greeks themselves became acquamted with their existence. The jealousy with which the Phcenicians contrived to conceal from their Mediterranean neighbours these remote sources of their wealth, had prevent- ed, even in the time of Homer, more than a doubtful and glim- mering notion of a Sea of Isles beyond the Pillars from reaching the yet unexcursive Greeks. Enough, however, had transpired to awaken the dreams alike of the poet and the adventurer ; and while Homer, embellishing the vague tales which he had caught up from Phoenician voyagersf, placed in those isles the abodes of the Pious and the Elysian fields of the Blest|, the thoughts of the trader and speculator were not less actively occupied in discovering treasures without end in the same poetic regions. Hence all those popular traditions of the Fortunate Islands, the Hesperides^, the Isle of Calypso, — creations called up in these " unpathed waters," and adopted into the poetry of the Greeks, before any clear knowledge of the realities had * See Smith's History of Cork, book i. chap. i. According to Appian, the Spaniards of his time used to perform the passage to Britain, with the tide in their favour, in half a day.—" Quando in Britanniam, una cum aestu maris transvehuntur quae quidem trajectio dimidiati diei est."—lberica. t"That Homer had the opportunities mentioned, and that he did not neglect to improve them, will best appear by considering what he has really learned from the Phoenicians. This will be a certain proof of his having conversed with them."— Blackwell, Enquiry into the Ltfe and Writings of Homer, sect. 11. X 'O Toivvv i:oit}rt}g raq roaavras crpariai tri ra £v eitXaae ;^wpov koi to HXro-jov -ztitov. — Strabon. lib. iii. § Plutarch, de Facie in Orb. Lun.— Hesiod. Theogou. IRELAND KNOWN TO THE PHOENICIANS. 15 reached them. In the " Argonautics*," a poem written, it is supposed, more than 500 years before the Christian era, there is a sort of vague dream of the Atlantic, in which Ireland alone, under the Celtic name of lernis, is glanced at, without any reference whatever to Britain. It is thought, moreover, to have been by special information, direct from the Phoeniciansf, that the poet acquired this knowledge ; as it appears from Herodotus, that not even the names of the Cassiterides, or British Isles, were known in Greece when he wrote ; and the single fact, that they were the islands from which tin was im- ported, comprised all that the historian himself had it in his power to tell of them. The very first mention that occurs of the two chief British isles is in a work]: written, if not by Aristotle, by an author contemporary with that philosopher, — the treatise in question having been dedicated to Alexander the Great. The length of time, indeed, during which the monopoly of the trade in tin by the Phoenicians was kept not only inviolate, but secret, forms one of the most striking marvels of ancient history. For although, as far back as about 400 years before Herodotus wrote, there had reached Homer, as we have seen, some faint glimpses of an ocean to the west, which his imagination had peopled with creations of its own, it was not till the time of Aristotle^ — near a whole century after — that the Massilian Greeks had * VVTritten, it is supposed, by Onomacritus, a cotemporary of Pisistratus. There appears to be no good reason for doubting the high antiquity of this poem. The treatise, in defence of its authenticity, by Ruhnkenius, who shows it to have been quoted by two ancient grammarians, seems to have set the question at rest^ (Epist.Crit. 2.) Archbishop Usher, in referring to the mention of lerne in this poem, adds, that " the Romans themselves could not produce such a tribute to their antiquity" (Ecclesiar. Antiq. c. 16.): and Camden, to secure a share of the high honour for his country, first sup- poses that a nameless island, described by the poet, must be Britain ; and then changes the sole epithet by which it is described, for one more suited to his purpose : — " Quae necessario sit hcec nostra, AcvKaiov ^epaov, id est, albi- cantem terram dixisse quam ante pauculos versus Nrjaov -KcvKrjccaav, pro "XevKrieatrav, vocasse videatur." Camden, Britan. t " Nempe edoctus a Phoenicibus, Graecis enim tunc temporis hsec loca erant inaccessa. "—SocAart, 6eog. Sac. lib. i. c. 39. The epithet, Cronian, applied by this Orphic poet to the sea in the neighbourhood of the Hyperbo- reans, is, according to Toland, purely Irish ; the word Croin, in that lan- guage, signifying Frozen. This circumstance of Ireland having been known to the Argonauts, is thus alluded to by a Dutch writer of the sixteenth century, Adrian Junius : — " Ilia ego sum Graiis olim glacialis lerne Dicta, et Jasoni puppis bene c(^nita nau^." t De Mundo. §The Athenians had already, in this philosopher's time, as he himself mentions (CEconomic. 1. 2.), been advised to secure to themselves the mo- nojjoly of the Tyrian market, by buying up all the lead. 16 HISTORY OF IRELAND. learned to explore those western regions themselves, and that, for the first time, in any writings that have come down to us, we find the two chief British islands mentioned, in the authentic treatise just referred to, under their old Celtic names of Albion and lerne. It is from a source, however, comparatively modern — the geographical poem of Festus Avienus — that our most valuable ins^ht into the fortunes of ancient Ireland is derived. In the separate expeditions undertaken by Hanno and Himilco beyond the Straits, while the former sailed in a southern direc- tion, the latter, shaping his course to the north, along the shores of Spain, (the old track of Phoenician voyagers between Gades and Grallicia,) stretched from thence across the ocean to the CEstrumnides, or Tin Isles. Of this expedition, a record, or journal, such as Hanno has left of his Periplus, was deposited by Himilco in one of the temples of Carthage, and still existed in the fourth century, when Avienus, having access, as he mentions, to the Punic records, collected from thence those curious details which he has preserved in his Iambics*, and which furnish by far the most interesting glimpse derived from antiquity of the early condition of Ireland. The CEstrumnides, or Scilly Islands, are described, in this sketch, as two days' sail from the larger Sacred Island, inhabited by the Hiberni ; and in the neighbourhood of the latter, the island of the Albiones, it is said, extendsf. Though the description be somewhat obscure, yet the Celtic names of the two great Islands, and their relative position, as well to the CEstrumnides as to each other, leave no doubt as to Britain and Ireland being the two places * " Haec nos ab imis Punicorum annalibus Prolata longo tempore edidimus tibi." Fest. Avienus, de Oris Maritim. It would appear from this, that the records to which Avienus had access were written in Punic,— a circumstance which, if true, says Dodwell, would afford a probable reason for the name of Himilco 'having been so long un- known to the Greeks :— " Ea causa satis verisirailis esse potuit cur tamdiu GrsBcos latuerit Himilco, etiam eos qui collegae meminerint Hannonis."— Z)is- sert. de Peripli Hannonis mtate. t " Ast hinc duobus in Sacram, sic Insulam Dixere prisci, solibus cursus rati est. Haec inter undas multum cespitem jacit, Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit. Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet. Tartesiisque in terminos (Estrumnidum Negociandi mos erat, Carthaginis Etiam colonis, et vulgus inter Herculis Agitans columnas ha?c adibant aquora." One of the reasons assigned by Dodwell for rejecting the Periplus of Han- no, as a work fabricated, after his death, by some Sicilian Greek, is the oc- currence of Greek names instead of Phoenician for the different places men- tioned in it. This objection, however, does not apply '.o the account of HIMILCO'S ACCOUNT OF IRELAND. . 17 designated. The commerce carried on by the people of Gades with the Tin Isles is expressly mentioned by the writer, who adds, that " the husbandmen, or planters, of Carthage, as well as her common people, went to those isles," — thus implying that she had established there a permanent colony. In this short but circumstantial sketch, the features of Ireland are brought into view far more prominently than those of Bri- tain. After a description of the hide-covered boats, or currachs, in which the inhabitants of those islands navigated their seas, the populousness of the isle of the Hiberni, and the turfy nature of its soil, are commemorate^. But the remarkable fact con- tained in this record — itself of such antiquity — is, that Ireland was then, and had been from ancient times, designated " The Sacred Island." This reference of the date of her early re- nown, to times so remote as to be in Himilco's days ancient, carries the imagination, it must be owned, far back into the depths of the past, yet hardly further than the steps of history will be found to accompany its flight. Respecting the period of the expeditions of Hanno and Himilco, the opinions of the learned have differed ; and by some their date is referred to so distant a period as 1000 years before the Christian era.* Com- bining the statement, however, of Pliny, that they took place during the most flourishing epoch of Carthagef, with the in- ternal evidence furnished by Hanno's own Periplus, there is no doubt that it was, at least, before the reign of Alexander the Great that these two memorable expeditions occurred. Those " ancients," therefore, from wliom the fame of the Sacred Island had been handed down, could have been no other than the Phoenicians of Gades, and of the Gallician coasts of Spain, who, through so many centuries, had reigned alone in those secluded seas, and were the dispensers of religion, as well as of commerce, wherever they bent their course. | Himilco, as reported by Avienus, in which the old names Gadir, Albion, and Hibernia declare sufficiently their Phoenician and Celtic original. Speaking of the Argonautics and the record of Himilco, Bishop Stilling- fleet says, "These are undoubted testimonies of the ancient peopling of Ire- land, and of far greater authority than those domestic annals now so much extolled. — Antiquities of the British Churches, c. 5. * Nous croyons done, que cette expedition, a du prec6der Hesiode de trente on quarante ans, et qu'on pent la fixer vers mille ans avant I'ere Chr6- iienwe.—Gossclin, Recherches sur la Oeographie des ^nciens. t Et Hanno, Carthaginis potentia florente, circumvectus a Gadibus ad finem Arabise, navigationem eam prodidit scripto : sicut ad extera Europe noscenda missus eodem tempore Himilco. — Plin. J^at. Hist. lib. ii. c. 67. X See, for a learned and luminous view of the relations of ancient Ireland with the East, Lord Rosse's Vindication of the Will of the Rt. Hon. Henry Flood. 2* 18 ' HISTORY OF IRELAND. At how early a period this remarkable people began to spread themselves over the globe, the inscription legible, for many an age, on the two Pillars, near the Fount of the Magi, at Tan- gie]-6, — " We fly from the face of Joshua, the robber," — bore striking testimony.* Nothing, indeed, can mark more vividly the remote date of even the maturity of their empire, than the impressive fact, that the famed temple which they raised, at Gades, to their Hercules, was, in the time of the Romans, one of the most memorable remains of ancient days.f Not to go back, however, as far as the period, little less than 1500 years before our era, when their colonies first began to swarm over the waters, we need but take their most prosperous epoch, which commenced with the reign of Solomon, and supposing their sails to have then first reached the Atlantic, the date of the probable colonization of that region must still be fixed high in time. In the days of Herodotus, by whom first vaguely, and without any certain knowledge of a sea beyond the Straits, the importation of tin from the Cassiterides is mentioned, it is hard- ly too much to assume that the Phoenicians had, for some time, formed a settlement in these islands.' That they must have had a factory here is pretty generally conceded: J but a people, whose system it was to make colonization the beisis of their power, were assuredly not likely to have left a position of such im- mense commercial importance unoccupied ; and the policy, first taught by them to trading nations, of extending the circle of their customers by means of colonies, was shown in the barter, which they thenceforward maintained with the British Isles — exchanging their own earthen vessels, salt, and brass, for the tin, lead, and skins produced in these islands. § There are grounds for believing, also, that to the Phoenicians, and consequently to the Greeks, Ireland was known, if not * Procop. Vandal, lib. 2. c. 10.— Even this is by Bishop "Cumberland consi- dered too stinted a range of time for their colonizations. " They seem to me," he says, " to have had much more time to make their plantations than that learned man (Bochart) thought of; for, as I understand their history, they had time from about Abraham's death, which was about 370 3'ears before Joshua invaded Canaan, from wJiich Bochart begins." — J^otcs on the Syn- chronism of Canaan and Egypt. t Diodor. Sicul. lib. iv. X " During this commerce, it can scarce be doubted that there might be established, on the different coasts, factories for the greater convenience of trading with the natives for skins, furs, tin, and such other commodities as the respective countries then produced." — Beauford, Druidism Revived, Col- lect. Hih. No. VII. $ MeraXXo ht £)(^ovT£g KaTTirepov Kai fioXvSSov^ Kcpafiov avri tovtu)v kui Tdiv 6epnaTU)v SiaWaTTovrai^ Kai aXaj, Kai ■^aXKUfxara Trpoy tovs sixiropovs. — Strab. Oeograph. lib. iii. Ptolemy's geography. 19 earlier, at least more intimately, than Britain.* We have seen that, in the ancient Poem called the " Argonautics," supposed to have been written in the time of the Pisistratidae, and by a poet instructed, it is thought, from PhcEnician sources, lerne alone is mentioned, without any allusion whatever to Britain ; and in the record preserved of Himilco's voyage to these seas, while the characteristic features of the Sacred Isle are dwelt upon with some minuteness, a single line alone is allotted to the mere geographical statement that in her neighbourhood the Island of the Albiones extends. Another proof of the earlier intimacy which the Phoenician Spaniards maintained v/ith Ireland, is to be found in the Geo- graphy of Ptolemy, who wrote at the beginning of the second century, and derived chiefly, it is known, from Phoenician au- thorities, his information respecting these islands. For while, in describing the places of Britain, more especially of its nor- thern portion, this geographer has fallen into the grossest er- rors, — placing the Mull of Galloway to the north, and Cape Orcas or Dunsby Head to the east,f — in his account of Ireland, on the contrary, situated as she then was beyond the bounds of the Roman empire, and hardly known within that circle to exist, he has shown considerable accuracy, not only with re- spect to the shores and promontories of the island, but in most of his details of the interior of the country, its various cities and tribes, lakes, rivers, and boundaries. It is worthy of re- mark, too, that while of the towns and places of Britain he haa in general given but the new Roman names, those of Ireland still bear on his map their old Celtic titles]:; the city Hybernis still tells a tale of far distant times, and the Sacred Promonto- ry, now known by the name of Carnsore Point, transports our * It may appear inconsistent with the claim of Ireland to priority of repu- tation, that the whole of the Cassiterides were, in those days, called the Bri- tannic Isles,— a circumstance which, taken as implying that the others had derived their title from Britain, and had so far merged their reputation in hers, would doubtless indicate so far a pre-eminence on her part. The nam.-; Britannia, however, which, in Celtic, means a land of metals, was applied generically to the whole cluster of the Tin Isles, — the Isle of Man and those of Scilly included, — and being, therefore, a title common to all, could not imply, in itself, any superiority of one over another. Whether tin has been ever found in Ireland is doubtful; but lead mines, which were, at least, equally a source of lucre to the Phoenicians, have been, not long since, dis- covered and worked. t " By an error in the geographical or astronomical observations preserved by Ptolemy, the latitudes north of this point (the Novantum Cheraonesus, or Rens of Galloway) appear to have been mistaken for the longitudes, and consequently this part of Britain is thrown to the east."— JVoics on Richard of Cirencester. X " Ireland plainly preserves, in her topography, a much greater proportion of Celtic names than the map of any other country."— CAa/mcrs's Caledonia, vol. i. book 1. chap. 1. 20 HISTORY OF IRELxlND. imagination back to the old Phoenician days.* When it is consi- dered that Ptolemy, or rather Marinus of Tyre, the writer whose steps he implicitly followed, is believed to have founded his ge- ographical descriptions and maps on an ancient Tyrian Atlas,t this want of aboriginal names for the cities and places of Bri- tain, and their predominance in the map of Ireland, prove how much more anciently and intimately the latter island must have been known to the geographers of Tyre than the former. But even this proof of her earlier intercourse with that peo- ple and their colonies, and her proportionate advance in the ca- reer of civilization, is hardly more strong than the remarkable testimony, to the same effect, of Tacitus, by whom it is de- clared that, at the time when he wrote, " the waters and har- bours of Ireland were better known, through the resort of com- merce and navigators, than those of Britain."! From this it appears tliat, though scarce heard of, till within a short period, by the Romans, and almost as strange to the Greeks, this se- quester-ed island was yet in possession of channels of inter- course distinct from either; and that while the Britons, shut out from the Continent by their Roman masters, saw them- selves deprived of all that profitable intercourse which they had long maintained with the Veneti, and other people of Gaul, Ireland still continued to cultivate her old relations with Spain, and saw her barks venturing on their accustomed course, be- * " In the remote ages of Phcenician commerce, all the western and south- western promontories of Europe were consecrated by the erection of pillars or temples, and by religious names of Celtic and primasval antiquity : this is expressly stated by Strabo. These sacred headlands multiplied in proportion as new discoveries were made along the coasts."— LeMers of Columbanus, bij O'Connor, Letter Third. The learned writer adds in a note :— " Tlie Sacrum Promontorium, or south-western headland of Iberia Antiqua, was Cape St. Vincent. That of Ireland was Carne-soir point, as stated by Ptolemy." This headland of Carnsore would be the first to meet the eyes of the Plioe- nician navigators in their way from Cornwall to Ireland. t It has been shown by Bremer {De Fontibus Ocographorum Ptolemcci, d^c.,) a writer quoted by Heeren, " that Ptolemy's work itself, as well as the ac- companying charts, usually attributed to a certain Agathodaemon, who lived at Alexandria in the fifth century, were, in reality, derived from Plicenician or Tyrian sources;— in other words, that Ptolemy, or, more properly speak- ing, Mariims of Tyi'C, who lived but a short time before him, and whose work he only corrected, must h.ive founded his geographical descriptions and maps on an ancient Tyrian Atlas."— See Hccren's Historical Researches, vol. iii. Append. C. t " Melius aditus portusque, per commcrcia ct negociatores, cogniti."— Tacit. Agricol. c. 24. An attempt has been made, by some of tiie comment- ators, to deprive Ireland of most of the advantages of this testimony, by the suggestion of a new and barbarous reading, which transfers the word " me- lius" to the preceding sentence, and is not less unjust to the elegant Latinity of the historian, than to the ancient claims of the country of which he treats. It is, however, gratifying to observe that, in spite of this effort, the old reading in general maintains its ground; though, with a feeling but too characteristic of a certain class of Irishmen. Arthur Murphy has, in his translation, adopted the new one. INTERCOURSE OF IRELAND WITH SPAIN. 'H tween the Celtic Cape and the Sacred Promontory, as they had done for centuries before. Combining these proofs of an early intercourse between Ire- land and the Phoenician Spaniards, with the title of Sacred bestowed on this Island in far distant times, it can hardly be doubted, that her pre-eminence in religion was the chief source of this distinction ; and that she was, in all probability, the chosen depository of the Phoenician worship in these seas. By the epithet Sacred, applied to a people among the ancients, it was always understood that there belonged to them some re- ligious or sacerdotal character. In this sense it was, that the Argippasi, mentioned by Herodotus*, were called a Holy Peo- ple ; and the claim of Ireland to such a designation was doubt- less of the same venerable kind. It has been conjectured, not without strong grounds of probability, that it was a part of the policy of the Phoenician priesthood to send out missions to their distant colonies, on much the same plan as that of the Jesuits at Paraguay, for the purpose of extending their spiritual power over those regions of wliich their merchants had pos- sessed themselves f ; and it is by no means unlikely that the title of Sacred, bestowed thus early upon Ireland, may have arisen from her having been chosen as the chief seat of such a mission. The fact, that there existed an island devoted to religious rites in these regions, has been intimated by almost all the Greek writers who have treated of them ; and the position, in every instance, assigned to it, answers perfectly to that of Ire- land. By Plutarch | it is stated, that an envoy dispatched by the emperor Claudius to explore the British Isles, found on an island, in the neighbourhood of Britain, an order of Magi ac- counted holy by the people : and, in another work of the same writer^, some fabulous wonders are related of an island lying * Lib. ii. t " I believe it will be found that many of their regular priests, the Magi, or Gours, did (as the regulars of modern times and religions have done) settle missions amongst the nations in those most distant parts."— fTtsc's Enqui- ries concerning the First Inhabitants, Language, ^c. of Europe. Sir Isaac Newton, too, as quoted by Pownall, says, " With these Phojnicians came a sort of men skilled in religious mysteries." X In Numa. Ji De Fac. in Orb. Lunre. " Marcellus, who wrote a history of Ethiopian airs, says, that such and so great an island (the Atalantis) once existed, is evinced by those who composed histories of things relative to the external sea. For they relate that, in those times, there were seven islands in the Atlantic Sea sacred to Proserpine."— Proc^ws on the Timceus, quoted in Clarke's Maritime Discoveries. See, for the traditions in India respecting the White Island of the Wc«t, Asiatic Transactions, vol. ii. " Hiran'ya and Su-varn'eya (says Major Wil- ford) are obviously the same with Erin and Juvcrnia, or Ireland. Another HISTORY OF IRELAND, o to the west of Britain, the inhabitants of which were a holy- race ; while, at the same time, a connexion between them and Carthage is indistinctly intimated. Diodorus Siculus also gives an account, on the authority of some ancient writers, of an island "^ situated, as he says, " over against Gaul ;" and which, from its position and size, the rites of sun-worship practised by- its people, their Round Temple, their study of the heavens, and the skill of their musicians on the harp, might sufficiently warrant the assumption that Ireland was the island so charac- terized, did not the too fanciful colouring of the whole descrip- tion rather disqualify it for the purposes of sober testimony, and incline us to rank this Hyperborean island of the historian along with his Isle of Panchsea and other such fabulous marvels. At the same time, nothing is more probable, than that the vague, glimmering knowledge which the Greeks caught up occasion- ally from Phoenician merchants, respecting the sun-worship and science of the Sacred Island, lerne, should have furnished the writers referred to by Diodorus with tlie ground-work of this fanciful tale. The size attributed to the island, which is described as " not less than Sicily," is, among the many coin- cidences with Ireland, not the least striking ; and, with respect to its position and name, we jfind, that so late as the time of the poet Claudian, the Scoti or Irish were represented as in the immediate neighbourhood of the Hyperborean seas.f But the fragment of antiquity the most valuable for the light it throws upon this point, is that extracted from an ancient geographer, by Strabo, in which we are told of an island near Britain, where sacrifices were offered to Ceres and Proserpine, in the same manner as at Samothrace.| From time immemorial, the small isle of Samothrace, in the iCgean, was a favourite seat of idolatrous worship and resort; and on its shores the Cabiric Mysteries had been established by the Phcenicians. These rites were dedicated to the deities who presided over name for it is Surya-Dwipa, or the Island of the Sun, and it is probably the old Garden of Phoebus of the western niythologists."— £ssay en the Sacred Isles in the West. * This island has been claimed on the part of several countries. The editor of Diodorus, in a sliort note on his Index, suggests that it may have been meant for Britain :— " Vide num de Anglia intelligi queat." Rowland in- sists it can be no other than his own Isle of Anglesea ; while Toland fixes its site in the Western Isles of Scotland ; and the great Swedish scholar, lludbeck, places it boldly in the peninsula of Scandinavia. t Scotumquc vago mucrone secutus Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas. De III. Cons. Honor, v. 55. Marcianus Ueracleota, too, describes Ilibernia as bounded on the north by Ihe Hyperborean Sea. I i. V. 169. " Tout le peuple cr6dule achete aussitot de ces bougies." This mode of increasing their income, says Hyde, is resorted to by them in addition to their tithes: — " Praeter decimas excogitarunt alium sacerdotalem reditum augendi modum." t L. 2. c. 20.—" This reminds us of the old Oriental contests between the worshippers of fire and those of water, and leads to a conclusion that some connexion had existed between Ireland and remote parts of the East." — Lanigan, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, vol. i. chap. 5. X Sir W. Betham's Irish Antiquarian Researches, Append. 29. § Letters of Columbanus, by Dr. O'Connor, let. iii. 3* 30 HISTORY OF IRELAND. among them is generally, we are told, to the effect that their ancestors did the same, and that it was designed as a preven- tive against the sorceries of the Druids, There is scarcely a people throughout the East, among whom this primitive prac- tice, of hanging pieces torn from their garments upon the branches of particular trees, has not been found to prevail. The wild-olive of Africa*, and the Sacred Tree of the Hindusf, bear usually strung upon them this simple sort of offering ; and more than one observant traveller in the East has been reminded, by this singular custom, of Ireland. There are, however, some far less innocent coincidences to be remarked between the Irish and Eastern creeds. It is, indeed, but too certain that the sacrifice of human victims formed a part of the Pagan worship in Ireland, as it did in every country where tlie solar god, Baal, was adored. On the eve of the Feast of Samhin, all those whom, in the month of March preceding, the Druids had, from their tribunal on Mount Usneach, condemned to death, were, in pursuance of this solemn sentence, burned between two fires.| In general, however, as regarded both human creatures and brutes, the ceremony of passing them between two fires appears to have been intended not to affect life, but merely as a mode of peri- odical purification.^ Thus, in an old account of the Irish rites, *TIie ArgnM.— Travels iit Europe and Jlfrica, hy Colonel Keating. "A traveller," observes this writer, " will see precisely tlie like in tl>e west of Ireland." Mungo Park, too, speaks of the largo tree called Neenia Tooba, " decorated with innumerable rags and scraps of cloth," and which " nobody now presumed to pass without hanging up something." t See Sir William Ouseley's interesting Travels through Persia, vol. ii. Append. No. 9.— Among the trees thus decorated, seen by Sir William in the vale of Abdui, and elsewhere, he mentions one in the neighbourhood of a stone pillar ; bringing to his recollection, he says, various remains which he had seen in Wales and Ireland. J From an old Irish manuscript in the possession of the learned antiquary, Lhuyd, cited by Dr. O'Connor. See also O'Brien's Irish Dictionary, Beol, tinne, where, however, the translation is somewhat different from that of Dr. O'Connor. § The superstition of purifying between two fires appears to have been as universal as it was ancient. " Les adorateurs de feu, dit Maimonidc (lib. iii. C.38.), publierent qui ccu.x qui ne feraient point passer leursjjnfans par le feu, les exposoient au danger de mourir." — Dvpiiis, torn. iii. p. 740. " Tin narrative of an embassy from Justin to the KhAkan, or emperor, who then resided in a fine vale near the Irtish, mentions the Tartarian custom of puri- fying the Roman ambassadors by conducting them between ' two fires.' " — Sir TV. Jones, Fifth Discourse, on the Tartars. " The more ignorant Irish," says Ledwich, "still drive their cattle through these fires as an effectual means of preserving them from future accidents;" and Martin tells us that the natives of the Western Isles of Scotland, which are known to have been peopled from Ireland, "when they w^ould describe a man as being in a great strait, or difficulty, say that he is between two fires of Bel." The same su- perstitious practice vvas observed at the festival of the goddess Pales, at Rome. " Per flammas saluisse pecus, saluisse colonos."— 0?;i>, Capitol, the seat of every god, except Terminus, was removed. t The practice of seating the new King upon a stone, at his initiation, was the practice in many of the countries of Europe. The Dukes of Carin- thia were thus inaugurated (Joan. Boem. de Morib. Gentium, lib. iii.) The monarchs of Sweden sat upon a stone placed in the centre of twelve lesser ones (Olaus Magn. de Ritu gent, septent. i. c. 18.), and in a similar kind of circle the Kings of Denmark were crowned.— (Hist, de Danemarck.) In reference to the enormous weight of the stones composing this last-men- tioned monument. Mallet livelily remarks,'!*" que de tout temps la super- stition a imagine qu'on ne pouvait adorer la divinite qu'en faisant pour elle des tours de force." §The practice of turning round the body, in religious and other solemni- ties, was performed differently by different nations of antiquity ; and Pliny, in stating that the Romans turned from the left to the right, or sunwise, adds, that the Gauls thought it more religious to turn from tlie right to the left. lib. xxviii. c. 5. See the commentators on this passage of Pliny, who trace the enjoiinnent of the practice in question to no less authorities than Pythagoras and Nuina. The Celts, according to Posidonius (apud Athen. lib. iv.), turned always to the right in worshipping. — T.ous ^tovg wpoaKvvovaiv e-m ra 6t^ia vg.~Max. Tyr. Serm. 38. WMas^h-JIdhair.—'-'' A plain, or field of adoration or worship, where an open temple, consi.sliug of a circle of tall straight stone pillars, with a very large flat stone, called cromleac, serving for an altar, was constructed by the Druids, . . . several plains of this name, Magh-Adhair, were known in Ire- land, particularly one in the country now called the County of Clare, where the kings of the O'Brien race were inaugurated."— O'Brien's Irish Diction- ary. It was under a remarkable tree on this plain that the ceremony of initiating the Dalcassiv.n kings took place. {O'Brien, in voce Magh-bile.) In the Annals of the Four Masters for the year 981, there is an account of the destruction of this Sacred Tree. For the origin of four of the great Dalcassian families, viz. the O'Briens, the Mac Mahons, the O'Kennedys, and the Macnamaras, see Rer. Hibemicar. Script, prol. 1. 13:^. 48 HISTORY OF IRELAND. I By some antiquaries, who affect to distinguish between th( Celtic and Gothic customs in Ireland, the mode of inaugurat- ing the Dalcassian chiefs is alleged to have been derived from the first inhabitants or Celts; while,* on the other hand, the use of the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, in the ceremony, was in- troduced, they say, by the later, or Scythic colonies. In this latter branch of the opinion, they are borne out by the ancient traditions of the country, which trace to the Danaans, a Scythic or Gothic tribe, the first importation of the custom. That the worship of stones, however, out of which this ceremony sprung, was a superstition common not only to both of these races, bul to al] the first tribes of mankind, is a fact admitted by most in- quirers on the subject. The same may be affirmed of every branch of the old primitive superstition ; and, therefore, to at- tempt to draw any definite or satisfactory line of distinction, between the respective forms of idolatry of the two great Eu- ropean races, is a speculation that must be disconcerted and baffled at every step. A well-known dogmatist in Irish anti- quities, desirous to account, by some other than the obvious causes, for that close resemblance which he cannot deny to exist between the Celtic and Gothic superstitions, has had recourse to the hypothesis, that a coalition between the two rituals must, at some comparatively late period, have taken place.* But a natural view of the subject would, assuredly, have led to the very reverse of this conclusion, sliowing that, originally, the forms of idolatry observed by both races were the same, and that any difference observable, at a later period, has been the natural result of time and circumstances. CHAPTER III. THE DRUIDS, OR MAGI OF THE IRISH. The religious system of the Pagan Irish having been thus shown, as regards both its ceremonies and its objects, to have been, in many respects, peculiar to themselves, it remains to be considered whether the order of Priesthood which presided over their religion did not also, in many points, differ trom the Priests of Britain and of Gaul. Speaking generally, the term Druidism applies to the whole of that mixed system of hierurgy, consisting partly of patriarchal, and partly of idolatrous obser- vances, which the first inhabitants of Europe are known to * •' The Druids, when known to the Greeks and Romans, had united the Celtic and Scythic rituals, and exercised their functions both in groves and caves.'''— Ledwich, Antiquities of Ireland, p. 49. DRUIDISM. 49 have brought with them in their migration from the East ; and the cause of the differences observable in the rituals of the three countries where alone that worship can be traced, is to be sought for as well in the local circumstances peculiar to each, as in those relations towards other countries in which, either by commerce or position, they were placed. Thus, while to her early connexion with the Phoenicians the Sacred Island was doubtless indebted for the varieties of worship wafted to her secluded shores, the adoption by the Gallic Druids of the comparatively modern Gods of Greece and Rome, or rather of their own original divinities under other names, may, together with the science and the learning they were found in possession of by the Romans, be all traced to the intercourse held by them, for at least five hundred years before, with the colony of Pho- csBan Greeks established at Marseilles. Of all that relates to the Druids of Gaul, their rites, doc- trines, and discipline, we have received ample and probably highly coloured statements from the Romans. Our knowledge of the Irish Magi, or Druids, is derived partly from the early Lives of St. Patrick, affording brief but clear glimpses of the dark fabric which he came to overturn, and partly from those ancient records of the country, founded upon others, as we shall see, still more ancient, and so reaching back to times when Druidism was still in force. With the state or system of this order, in Britain, there are no such means of becoming acquaint- ed. It is a common error, indeed, to adduce as authority re- specting the British Druids, the language of writers who profess to speak only of the Druidical priesthood of Gaul ; a confusion calculated to convey an unjust impression of both these bodies ; as the latter, — even without taking into consideration their alleged conferences with Pythagoras, which may be reasonably called in question, — had access, it is known, through the Mas- silian Greeks, to such sources of science and literature, as were manifestly beyond the reach of their secluded brethren of Britain. Even of the Gaulish Druids, however, the description transmitted by the Romans is such as, from its vagueness alone, might be fairly suspected of exaggeration ; and the indefinite outline they left has been since dilated and filled up by others, tOl there is scarcely a department of human knowledge with which these Druids are not represented to have been conver- sant. Nor is this embellished description restricted merely to the Gaulish priesthood, but given also as a faithful picture of the Druids of Britain ; though, among all the Greek and Ro- man writers who have treated of the subject, there is not one— with a slight exception, perhaps, as regards Pliny, — who has not limited his remarks solely and professedly to Gaul. Vol. I. 5 50 HISTORY OF IRELAND. The little notice taken by the Romans of the state of thi worship among the Britons, is another point which appear worthy of consideration. Instead of being general throughou the country, as might have been expected from the traditioi mentioned by Caesar, the existence of Druidism appears tc have been confined to a few particular spots ; and the chief seat of its strength and magnificence lay in the region nearer to the shores of Ireland, North Wales. It was there alone, aj is manifest from their own accounts, and from the awe anc terror with which, it is said, the novelty of the sight thei affected them*, that tlie Romans ever encountered any Druide during their whole stay in Britain; nor did Csesar, who dwells so particularly upon the Druids of Gaul, and even mentions thi prevalent notion that they had originated in Britain, ever hint that, while in that country, he had either met with any oi' theii order, or been able to collect any information concerning theii tenets or rites. The existence still, in various parts of Eng^ land, of what are generally called druidical monuments, is in- sufficient to prove that Druidism had ever flourished in those places ; such monuments having been common to all the first races of Europef, and though forming a part of the ritual of the Druids, by no means necessarily implying that it had ex- isted where they are found. In the region of Spain occupied anciently by the Turditani, the most learned of all the Celtic tribes, there is to be found a greater number of what are called Druidical remains than in any other part of the Peninsula. { Yet, of the existence of an order of Druids among that people,: neither Strabo nor any other authority makes mention. The only grounds that exist for extending and appropriating to the British Druids all that the Greek and Roman writers have said solely of those of Gaul, are to be found in the single, but doubtless important, passage wherein it is asserted by Csb- sarj, that Druidism had first originated in Britain, and was from thence derived by the Gauls. Presuming on the truth ot this assertion, it has been further concluded, as a matter of course, that all the features of the parent were exactly similar to those attributed to the offspring ; and upon this arbitrary assumption have all the accounts, so fully and confidently given, of tlie rites, doctrines, and learning of the British Druids been * Novitate aspectus perculere miUtes.— Tacit, ^nnal. lib. xiv. c. 30. t For proofs of the adoption of circular stone temples, and other such mo- numents, by the Gothic nations, .see Ledwich's Antiquities {Pagan State of Ireland, and its Remains), and Pinkerton's Enquiry, &c. part iii. chap. 12. \ History of Spain and Portugal, Cab. Cyclo. Introduction. 6 Disciplina in Britannia reperta, alque inde in Galliam iranslata esse efistimatur.— De Bell. Oall. lib. vi. c. 13. ORIGIN OF DRUIDISM. 51 founded. With respect to the statement, however, of Cresar, an obvious solution suggests itself, arising naturally out of all that has been advanced in the preceding pages, and amply suf- ficient, as I think, to account for the curious tradition which he mentions. We have seen, by the strong, though scattered, lights of evidence, which have been brought to concentre upon this point, at what an early period Ireland attracted the notice of that people, who were, in those times, the great carriers, not only of colonies and commerce, but also of shrines and divinities, to all quarters of the world. So remote, indeed, is the date of her first emergence into celebrity, that at a time when the Carthaginians knew of Albion but the name, the renown of lerne as a seat of holiness had already become an- cient ; her devotion to the form of worship which had been transported, perhaps from Samothrace, to her shores, having won for her, as we have seen, the designation of the Sacred Island. Those who look back to the prominent station then held by her, as a sort of emporium of idolatry, will not deem it unlikely that a new religion may have originated on her shores ; and that it was to her alone the prevalent tradition of the times of Caesar must have attributed the reputation of having first moulded the common creed of all the Celts into that peculiar form which has become memorable under the appellation of Druid ism. Whatever changes this form may have undergone in its adoption by Gaul and Britain, were the natural result of local circumstances, and the particular genius of each people ; while the greater infusion of orientalism into the theology of the Irish, arose doubtless from the longer continuance of their intercourse with the East. How large a portion of the reli- gious customs of Persia were adopted by the Magi or Druids of Ireland, has already been amply shown ; and to these latter Pliny* doubtless refers, under the same mistake as Caesar, when, in speaking of the Magi of different countries, he re- marks of the ceremonies practised in Britain, that they were of such a nature as to render it probable that they were the original of those of the Persians. The favourite tenet as well of Druidism as of Magism, the transmigration of the soul f , * Britannia hodieque earn attonite celebrat tantis cseremoniis, ut dedisse Persis videri possit. — Plin. J^at. Hist. lib. xxx. c. 4. On the intimation con- tained in this passage, Whitaker has founded a supposition, that, at some period, which he calls the Divine Age, the doctrine of the Western Druids may have penetrated so far East ; " thus solving," he says, " Pliny's conjec- ture of the Persians receiving it from them, which must have been in times comparatively to which the foundation of Ronie is hardly not a modern in- cident."— Ce^dc Vocabulary. t The prevalence, among them, of a belief in the transmigration of the 60ul, may be inferred from the fable respecting Ruan, one of the colony that 52 HISTORY OF IRELAND. which the Druids of Gaul are thought to have derived from the Massilian Greeks, might have reached them, through Ire- land, from some part of the East, at a much earlier period ; this favourite doctrine of all Oriental theologues, from the Brachmans of India to the priests of Egypt, being found in- culcated also through the medium of some of the traditions of the ancient Irish. The use, both by Pliny and Csesar, of the name Britain instead of Ireland argues but little against the presumption that the latter was the country really designed. The frequent employment of the plural, BritannisB*, to denote the whole of the British Isles, was, in itself, by no means un- likely to lead to such a confusion. Besides, so ignorant were the Roman scholars respecting the geography of these regions, that it is not impossible they may have supposed Britain and Ireland to be one and the same country ; seeing that, so late as the period when Agricola took the command of the pro- vince, they had not yet ascertained whether Britannia was an island or a continent.! To his statement, that Britain was thought to have origin- ated the institution of Druidism, Ceesar adds, that those who were desirous of studying diligently its doctrines, repaired in general to that country for the purpose.]: If, as the reasons I have above adduced render by no means improbable, the school resorted to by these students was really Ireland, the religious pre-eminence thus enjoyed by her, in those pagan days, was a sort of type of her social position many centuries after, when again she shone forth as the Holy Island of the West ; and again it was a common occurrence, as in those Druidical times, to hear said of a student in divinity, that he was " gone to pur- sue a course of sacred instruction in Hibernia."§ landed in Ireland, under Partholan, some two or three centuries after the Flood. Of this ancient personage, it was believed that he continued to live, through a long series of transmigrations, till so late as the time of St. Patrick, when, having resumed the human shape, he communicated to the saint all he knew of the early history of the island, and was then baptised and died. — J^icholson's Library, chap. 2. — licrum Hibern. Script. Ep. Nunc. * Thus Catullus :— " Hunc Galliaj timent, hunc timent Britaniae."— Carwi. 27. \ Hanc Oram novissimi maris tunc primum Romana classis circumvecta insulam esse Britanniam aifirmavit.— Tacit, jlgric. 10. Plutarch, in his Life of Caesar, asserts that the very existence of such a place as Britain had been doubted. X Et nunc qui diligentius earn rem cognoscere volunt plerumque illo dis- cendi causa proficiscuntur.— Z)e Bell. Oall. lib. vi. c. 13. § " St. Patrick's disciples in Ireland were such great proficients in the Christian religion, that, in the age following, Ireland was termed Sanctorum Patria, i. e. the Country of Saints The Saxons, in that age, flocked hither as to the great mart of learning ; and this is the reason why we find this so often in our writers,—' Amondatus est ad disciplinam in Hibernia,' such a one was sent over into Ireland to be educated.^'' — Camden. ETYMOLOGY OF THE TERM DRUID. 53 While, from all that has been here advanced, it may be as- sumed as not improbable that Ireland was the true source of this ancient creed of the West, there is yet another point to be noticed, confirmatory of this opinion, which is, that the term Druid, concerning whose origin so much doubt has exist- ed, is to be found genuinely, and without any of the usual strain- ing of etymology, in the ancient Irish language. The supposed derivation of the term from Drus, the Greek word for an oak, has long been rejected as idle* ; the Greek language, though flowing early from the same Asiatic source, being far more likely to have borrowed from than contributed to that great mother of most of the European tongues, the Celtic. It is, however, unnecessary to go any farther for the origin of the name than to the Irish language itself, in which the word Draoid is found, signifying a cunning man, or Magus, and im- plying so fully all that is denoted by the latter designation as to have been used as an equivalent for it in an Irish version of the Gospel of St. Matthew, where, instead of " the wise men, or Magi, came from the East," it is rendered, " the Druids came fi-om the East ;" and, in like manner, in the Old Testa- ment, Exod. vii. 11., tlio words " magicians of Egypt" are made " Druids of Egypt."! CHAPTER IV. ANTIQUITY OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE, — LEARNING OF THE IllISH MAGI OH DRUIDS. Our accounts of the learning of the Irish Druids, though far more definite and satisfactory than any that relate directly to the Druids of Britain, are still but imperfect and vague. Before we enter, however, on this topic, a few remarks on a subject intimately connected with it, the ancient language of the country, will not be deemed an unnecessary preliminary. Abundant and various as are the monuments to which Ireland can point, as mute evidences of her antiquity, she boasts a yet more striking proof in the living language of her people, — in that most genuine, if not only existing, dialect of the oldest of all European tongues, — the tongue which, whatever name it may be called by, according to the various and vague theories * For the various derivations of the term Druid that have been suggested by different writers, see Frickius de Druid, pars i. cap. i. t Matt. ii. 1. The Irish version is thus given by Toland :— Feuch tanga- dar Draoithe o naird shoir go Hirulasem:— and the passage in Exod. vii. 11. is thus rendered :—Anos Draoithe na H6gipte dor innedursanfos arau modligccadna le nandroigheachtuibh. 5* 54 HISTORY OF IRELAND. respecting it, whether Japhetan, Cimmerian, Pelasgic, or Celtic, is accounted most generally to have been the earliest brought from the East, by the Noachidse, and accordingly to have been " the vehicle of the first knowledge that dawned upon Europe."* In the still written and spoken dialect of this primaeval language f we possess a monument of the high anti- quity of the people to whom it belongs, which no cavil can reach, nor any doubts disturb. According to the view, indeed, of some learned philologers, the very imperfections attributed to the Irish language, — the predominance in it of gutturals, and the incompleteness of its alphabet, — are both but additional and convincing proofs, as well of its directly Eastern origin, as of its remote antiquity ; the tongues of the East, before the introduction of aspirates, having abounded, as it appears, with gutturals I , and the alphabet derived from tlie Phcenicians by the Greeks having had but the same limited number of letters which compose the Irish. 5 That the original Cadmeian number was no more than sixteen is the opinion, with but few exceptions, of the whole learned world ; and that such exactly is the number of the genuine Irish alphabet has been proved satisfactorily by the * Enquiries concerning the First Inhabitants, Languages, &c. of Europe, by Mr. Wise. t According to the learned but fanciful Lazius, the Irish language abounds with Hebrew words, and had its origin in the remotest ages of the world. {De.Ocntium Migration ibus.) A Frencli writer. Marcel, also, in speaking of the Irish idiom or dialect, says, "On pent dire avec quelque probability qu'il doit remonter a une 6poque'beaucoup plus roculee que les idinmes de la plu- part des autres contrees de I'Europe." This writer, who was Directeur de I'Emprimerie Imperiale, under Napoleon, published an Irish alphabet from types belonging to the Propaganda of Rome, which were sent, by the order of Napoleon, to Paris. Prefixed to his publication are some remarks on the, grammatical structure of the Irish language, which he thus concludes:— " Par cette marchc conjugative elle se rapproche de la siniplicite des langues anciennes et orientales. Elle s'en rapproche encore par les lettres serviles ou auxiliares, les affixes et les pr6(ixes, qu'elle emploie comme la langue H6braique." With the types of the Propaganda, the Irish Catechism of Mol- loy, called Lucerna Fidclium, was printed. X " La lingua Punica certamente venne pronunziata anticamente colla gorgia, e ne resta provato in quel piccol monumento che la scena prima di Plauto ci ha lasciato col carattere Letino."— G. P. ^gius de Solandis, quoted in Vallancey's Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language. " In the Oriental languages gutturals abounded ; these by degrees softened into mere aspirates," &c. — Rees's Cyclopfedia, art. Gothic Language. In tracing the Eastern origin of the Celtic, Dr. Pritchard remarks, that "words derived by the western from the eastern languages are changed in a peculiar Way. The most general of these alterations is the substituting of guttural for sibilant letters." May not such words, however, have been derived previously to the introduction of aspirates and sibilants ? § " Now, if this alphabet (the Irish) had not been borrowed at least before the time of the Trojan war, when Palamedes made the first addition to it, we can hardly conceive it should be so simple. Or, if the Druids should cull it, it would be remarkable that they should hit precisely on the letters of Cadmus, and reject none but the later additions." — Smith's Gaelic Antiquities, chap. 4. ANCIENT IRISH ALPHABET. 55 reverend and learned librarian of Stowe.* Thus, while all the more recent and mixed forms of language adopted the addi- tional letters of the Greeks, the Irish alone f continued to adhere to the original number — the same number no doubt which Herodotus saw graven on the tripods in the temple of Apollo at Thebes — the same number which the people of Attica adhered to with such constancy, that it became a cus- tomary phrase or proverb, among the Greeks to say of any thing very ancient, that it was " in Attic letters."| To so charac- teristic an extent did the Irish people imitate this fidelity, that even the introduction among them of the Roman alphabet by St. Patrick did not tempt them into any innovation upon their own. On the contrary, so wedded were they to their own let- ters, that, even in writing Latin words, they would never admit any Roman character that was not to be found in their primitive alphabet, but employed two or more of their own ancient characters to represent the same organic sound. § It will be perceived, from the foregoing remarks, that I con- Huddlestone, the editor of Toland, algo remarks upon this subject,—" If the Irish had culled or selected their alpiiabet from that of the Romans, how, or by what miracle, could they have hit on the identical letters which Cad- mus brought from Phoenicia, and rejected all the rest ? Had they thrown sixteen dice sixteen times, and turned up the same number every time, it would not have been so marvellous as this." * Detractis itaque quinque dipthongis, et consonantibus supra memoratis, qui nullibi in lingua Hibernica extant, non remanent plures quam sexdecim simplicia elementa, quot fuisse antiquissimas Cadmeias, PJinius, et Nonnus, et antiquissimi scriptores una voce testatum reliqiiere. — O'Connor, Jlnnal. Inisfall. Dc Inscript. Ogham. t " If they had letters first from St. Patrick, would they have deviated from the forms of the letters ? Would they have altered the order ? Would they have sunk seven (eight) letters ? For in every country they have rather in- creased than diminished the number of letters, except those of the Hebrew and Iri.=5h, which are in statxi quo to this day." — ParsoJi's Remains ofJapket. X In rff^rence to this proverb, Lilius Geraldus, quoting the assertion of some aiu'iont writer that treaties against the barbarians were ratified in Ionic, not in Attic, letters, adds, "quasi,ut puto, dicat Uteris recentioribus." — Lil. Qirald. de Poetis. § "Thus in all words begun or ended by'x, instead of writing that simple character, they never chose to represent it otherwise than by employing two of the Roman characters, viz. gs or cs; a trouble they certainly might have saved themselves, at least in writing the Latin, had they not rejected it as an exotic character, and not existing in their alphabet."— Z,i«craiwre of the Irifih after Christianity, Collectan. No. 5. This mode of expressing the letter X was anciently practised by the Ro- mans themselves ; but had been disused ages before the time when it could be supposed to have been communicated to them by the Irish. Another curious point, respecting the Irish alphabet, is thus noticed by the author of Oalic Antiquities : — "They could much easier have spared one of Cadmus's letters than some of those which have been afterv^^ards joined to it. Tho Greek x> ^o*" example, expresses a round so common in the Galic, and so im- perfectly expressed by the combined powers of c (or k) and //, that they could not possibly have omitted it, had It been in the alphabet when they adopted the rest of the letters." 56 HISTORY OF IRELAND. ceive the Irish to have been early acquainted with the use letters ; and such appears to me, I own, the conclusion which — attended, though it be, with some difficulties — a fair inquiry into this long-agitated question ought to lead. In asserting that letters were anciently known to this people, it is by no means implied that the knowledge extended beyond the learned or Druidical class — the diffiision of letters among the community at large being, in all countries, one of the latest results of civilized life. It is most probable, too, that, among the Irish, the art was still in a rude and primitive state ; their materials having been, as we are told, tablets formed of the \vood of the beech, upon which they wrote with an iron pen- cil, or stylus, and from whence the letters themselves were called, originally, Fcadha, or Woods. With implements deno- ting so early a stage of the art — a stage corresponding to that in which the Romans wrote their laws upon wood — the uses to which writing could have been applied were of course limited and simple, seldom extending, perhaps, beyond the task of transmitting those annals and genealogies which, there is every reason to believe, as we shall see, were kept regularly from, at least, the first century of our era. By the doubters of Irish antiquities the time of the apostle- ship of St. Patrick has been the epoch generally assigned for the first introduction of letters into that country. This hy- pothesis, however, has been compelled to give way to the high authority of Mr. Astle, by whom inscribed monuments of stone were discovered in Ireland, which prove the Irish, as he says, " to have had letters before the arrival of St. Patrick in that kingdom."* It is true, this eminent antiquary also asserts, that " none of these inscribed monuments are so ancient as to prove that the Irish were possessed of letters before the Ro- mans had intercourse with the Britons;" but the entire sur- render by him of the plausible and long-maintained notion, that to St. Patrick the Irish were indebted for their first knowledge of this gift, leaves no other probable channel through which, in later times, it could have reached them ; and accordingly sends us back to seek its origin in those remote ages, towards which the traditions of the people themselves invariably point, for its source. Of any communication held by the Romans with Ireland, there is not the least trace or record ; and the notion that, at a period when the light of History had found its way into these regions, such an event as the introduction of letters into a newly discovered island should have been passed unrecorded by either the dispensers or the receivers of the boon, seems altogether improbable. ^ * Origin and Progress of Writing, chap. v. ANCIENT IRISH ALPHABET. 57 Besides the alphabet they used for ordinary occasions, the ancient Irish were in possession also, we are told, of a secret mode of writing, such as is known to have been used for sacred purposes among the hierarchies of the East. And here, again, we find their pretensions borne out by such apt concurrence with antiquity, as could hardly have been concerted in even the most subtle scheme of vanity and imposture. It has been already mentioned, that the first Irish letters were, from the material on which they had been first inscribed, called Feadha, or Woods, — in the same manner as, according to a learned Hebraist, every word denoting books in the Pentateuch has direct reference to the material, whether wood or stone, of which they were composed.* With a similar and no less striking coincidence, the name Ogam, or Ogma, applied tra- ditionally to the occult forms of writing among the Irish, and of whose meaning the Irish themselves seem, till of late, to have been ignorant f, is found to be a primitive Celtic terra, signifying the Secrets of Letters | ; and, to confirm still farther this meaning, it is known that the Gaulish god of Eloquence was, on account of the connexion of his art with letters, called, by his worshippers, Ogmius,^ We have seen that, among the inscribed monitments of stone, of which there are so many throughout Ireland, the learned Astle found proofs to satisfy him that the Irish had letters be- fore the arrival of St. Patrick. Could some of the inscriptions, said to be in the Ogham character, be once satisfactorily au- thenticated, they would place beyond a doubt the claims of the natives to an ancient form of alphabet peculiarly their own. It is possible that, in a few of these instances, the lines taken for letters may have been no more than the natural marks, or furrows, in the stone ; as was frequently the case with those lines, supposed to be mystic characters, upon the Bcetyli, or Charmed Stones of the ancients. || The professed date, too, of * " II n'y a pas une expression dans Moyse on il parlo des livres qui ne puisse s'expliquer dans le sens de ces tables de pierre et de bois."— CaZmet. The wood of the beech has been the material used for the first attempts at writing in most countries. " Non displicet a fago arbore derivari quaa Ger- iTianis adhuc hodie die Buche, Suecis Boken, Danis Bog dicitur." See J. P. Murray, Jlnimadvcrs. in Literat. Runic. Commentat. Soc. Reg. Scient. Gotting. torn, ii., where a number of other curious particulars on this subject may be found. t The word is not to be found in O'Brien's Irish Dictionary, and is, I believe, omitted, also, in most of the others. X Probe noverim vocabulum Oga, Ogum, vel Ogma, Celte significasse secreta literarum, vel literas 'i\}»ns.—Kcysler, Aniiqq. Septent. § Lucian. Hercul. Gall. 11 " Some of the BiEtyls," says M. Falconnet, " avoient des lignes gravies Bur leur surface. Damascius les appelle lettres pour rendre la chose plus m HISTORY OF IRELAND. the Ogham inscription, on the mountain of Callan, of whici many and various versions have been suggested, has been call- ed in question by a learned antiquary seldom slow to believe in the evidence of his country's early civilization.* Neither, does any discovery seem to have been yet made of the tomb of Fiacra, a hero commemorated in the ancient Book of Bally-; mote, who received his death-wound in the battle of Caonry,' A. D. 380, and was buried in Meath, with his name inscribed, in the Ogham character, on his tomb.f There is, however, an account given in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, on the authority of two most intelligent and trust- worthy witnesses |, of the discovery of a stone inscribed with undoubted Ogham letters, in the neighbourhood of tlie town of Armagh, and on a spot resembling, in many of its features, the remarkable tumulus at New G range. ^ In addition to the consistency of this hierogrammatic mode of writing, with all else that is know^n of the antiquities of the country, the traditions relating to its use in sepulchral inscrip- tions may be traced far into past times ; and among other an- cient writings in which allusion to it occurs, may be mentioned the tale of the Children of Usneach, "one of the Three Tragic Stories of Eirin, in which the niterment of the young lovers is thus druidically represented: — "After this song, Deirdri flung lierself upon the Naisi in the grave, and died forthwith ; and stones were laid over their monumental heap, their Ogham name was inscribed, and their dirge of lamentation was sung."|l mysterieuse : effect ivement, ces lin^nes que je orois etre precisement ce qu'Orph6e appelle rides, forment una apparence de caracteres." — Dissert, sur Ics Bcctyls. * Dr. O'Connor, de inscript. Og\vxv[\.—Annal. Inisfal. t Vallancey, Irish Grammar, Pref. 1%— O'Connor, Ep. Jfunc. 33. and Annal. Inisfall. 136. J Doctor Brown and the Rev. Mr. Young, both follows of Trin. Coll. Dublin. In a letter from Doctor Brown (quoted in a paper, vol. viii. of the Irish Transactions), he is represented to have said, that " notwithstanding all that has been written, by very learned men, of the Ogham character, and some modern testimonies respecting its existence, he was extremely incredulous as to any monuments being actually extant on which it could bo found, and disposed to think that literary enthusiasm had mistaken natural furrows on the stone for engraved cliaracters : but, having satisfied himself that he was in error, he thought it a duty to the Academy to mention a monument of the kind tliat had come under his knowledge." § " They observed enough to impress them with a strong persuasion that the hill is excavated, the entrance being very like that at New Grange. Another resemblance is in the surrounding circle of upright stones, which (together with the want of a ditch or fosse) always distinguishes such tumuli." — Dr. Brown's ..Account. Ij For a prose version of this ancient Irish story, which furnished the foundation of Macpherson's Darthula, see Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Dublin. ANCIENT IRISH LANGUAGE. 59 I have already mentioned, as a proof of the existence of an original alphabet in the country before the introduction of that of the Romans, the characteristic obstinacy with which they adhered to their own limited number of letters, — insomuch as that, even in writing- Latin words, they took the unnecessary trouble of supplying, by combinations from their own original characters, the place of those additional letters of the Romans which they regarded as exotic. It may here be added, that the peculiar order of their native alphabet, in which b, l, r, n, stand as the initial letters, would afford such an instance of downright caprice and dictation, in mere beginners with these elements, as may be pronounced utterly, incredible. Another argument, equally strong, in favour of their claims to an original ancient alphabet, may be drawn from the use, in Irish orthography, of what are called quiescent consonants, which, though always preserved in writing, are omitted in pro- nunciation. If this characteristic of the language be really ancient, and not rather one of those corruptions or innovations which the bardic rhymers are acc»ed of introducing for the sake of the euphony or the rhythm * , there could be no more convincing proof of tlie existence of letters, from a very early period ; as by no other means, it is plain, than by a written standard could the memory of letters, left unpronounced in speaking, have been preserved. The state of parity in which, considering its great primaeval antiquity, the dialect of the Celtic spoken in Ireland was found existing, wlien first that country attracted the notice of modern Europe, appears in itself a sufficient proof that the use of let- ters had long been known to her people. It seems hardly pos- sible, indeed, to conceive that, without the aid of a written standard, this language could have retained to such a degree its original structure and forms, as even to serve as a guide and auxiliary to the philologer in his researches into the affinities and gradual formation of other more recent tongues. That there may be inherent in an original language like the Irish a self-conservative principle, it is most easy to believe ; but we yet perceive, in the instance of the Highlands of Scotlandf, * See, for the modes by which " the bards, or versificators, were accustomed to stretch out words by multiplyiii;? the syllables according to the exigency of their rhymes," O'Brien's Irish Diet. {Remarks on the Letter A.) One of those metliods was " by throwing between two vowels an adventitious con- sonant, to stretch and divide the two vowels with two different syllables." t "It is well known that the Erse dialect of the Gaelic was never written nor printed until Mr. Macfarlane, late minister of Killinvir, in Argyleshire, published, in 1754, a translation of Baxter's ' Call to the Unconverted.' "— Shaw's Enquinj, Sec. The author of the "Claims of Ossian," also, asserts that, " till within these thirty years, the Caledonians had never possessed so much as the skeleton of a national grammar." 60 HISTOKY OF IRELAND. how much the dialect of the Irish spoken by that people has, from the want or disuse of a written standard, become, in the course of time, changed and corrupted ; and still more remark- ably in the instance of Ireland itself, where, notwithstanding its acknowledged possession of the art of writing from the time of the mission of St. Patrick, so great a change has the language undergone during that interval, not only as spoken but as written, that there are still extant several fragments, of ancient laws and poems, whose obsolete idiom defies the skill of even the most practised Irish scholars to interpret them.* When so signal a change has been operated in the Irish lan- guage, during this period, in spite of the standard maintained, through a considerable portion of it, by a regular succession of public annalists, as well as by the writings of native leg^end- aries and bards, it seems fair to conclude, that, if left without any such safeguards, and in the state of barbarism their absence would imply, the general speech of the people must, in time, have degenerated into a mere vague jargon, retaining but little trace of those features of relationship towards some of the most polished tongues of Europe, which induced the great Leibnitz to recommend a diligent study of the Irish language as highly conducive, in his opinion, to the knowledge and promotion of Celtic literature. t With respect to the medium through which the Irish may be supposed to have early received the knowledge of letters, it might be sufficient to point' to Gaul as the not improbable region from whence the British, as well as the Irish Druids, may have been furnished with the gift. That the use of letters was known to the Gauls, the whole context of Csesar's remarks on the subject proves. The single sentence, indeed, where he states that the Druids forbade their doctrines to be committed to writing, fully suffices to prove this art to have been already introduced into the country ; tlie very circumstance of its being prohibited clearly implying its pre-existence. For all the or- * Lingua enim Hibernica qua incolffi Hiberniae et Albaniae nunc vulgo utuntur in pluribus diversa est ab anliqua ; et cum id in Codicibus scriptis pateat, quis nisi fatuis studiis abreptus non percipit, diveraitatem longe majorem necessario oriri debere in Jingua non scripta.—iZer. Hibern. Script. Ep. nunc. Tlie learned Colgan, in speaking of some poems ascribed to Dalian, an Irish bishop of the sixth century, declares them to have been written in so ancient a style as to be wholly unintelligible, even to many who were versed in the ancient idiom of the country:—" A multis alioquin in veteri patrio idiomate versatis nequeunt penetrari." (duoted by Dr. O'Connor, Prol. ii. Ixxiv.) t Postremo, ad perficiendam, vel certe valdfi promovenddm literaturam Celticam, diligentius linguffi Hibernicse studium adjungendum censeo. — Collectan. Etymol.,\o\. i. LEARNING OF THE IRISH DRUIDS. 61 dinary purposes of life, they made use, adds Ccesar, of the Greek letters ; and these they derived, it is supposed, from the Greek colonies established at Marseilles. We have already seen, and also on Caisar's authority, that to Britain, the cradle and school of Druidism, such Gaulish students as wished to perfect them- selves in its mysteries, resorted. Without insisting any farther on the highly probable supposition, that the Magi or Druids of Ireland were, in reality, those instructors to whom the Gauls sent their youth to be initiated in the higher mysteries, and whose rites Pliny describes as so singularly resembling those of the Persians, there would be at least no violent degree of assumption in supposing such an intercourse to have early ex- isted between the three countries, as might have been the means of supplying the Druids, both of Britain and Ireland, with that knowledge of letters so long possessed by their brethren of Gaul. But there is still an earlier and, as far as Ireland is concern- ed, more obvious channel, through which this acquisition may have been derived by her people. Those who have accompa- nied the course of inquiry pursued in the foregoing pages may have seen reason to believe that the Irish, from their evident connexion both with Phoenician and Carthaginian sources, were far more early and more directly, than even the Gauls them- selves, in the way of receiving a gift so familiar to most of their Eastern visiters, and which, there are good grounds for supposing, was in those days much more extensively circulated, among at least the learned or sacred classes of all countries, than it has been the fashion of modern hypothesis to admit. How wholly improbable It is, that the Irish should not have been furnished with this important knowledge from the same nation that supplied, in a great part, their creed and their ritual, the names of tlieir gods and festivals, of their sacred hills and promontories, has already, perhaps, been more than sufficiently urged. In those parts of Spain with which the Irish were most acquainted, the Phoenicians had, from the time of Moses, established themselves* ; and, accordingly, letters are known to have flourished in those regions before the Romans were even in existence, as Romans themselves have acknowledged.! * ToDj ^e oiviKas Xtyo) jirjvvTag. Kai Trjg iBrjpias Kai rrjg AiBvrjs rriv apiarr]u ovToi KUTcax^ov npo ttjs tiXiklus Ofxijpov.—Strab. lib. iii. However exagger- ated may have been Strabo's hearsay account of the Turditani, who, he tells us, were said to have been in posserision of poeins, laws in verse, and other written monuments of antiquity, for the space of six hundred years, such an extent of assertion would hardly have been without some foundation in fact. See, for the passage, his Third Book. t In iis etiam regionibus, unde Scotorum ori^inis cognitio eruenda est, nempe in occidentalibus Iberia; partibus, a Phcenicibus, ab ipso Moysis a;vo, Vol. I. 6 62 HISTORY OF IRELAND. That an island situated in the very neighbourhood of si sources of civilization, and so long connected, as it appears, with the people who were the great dispensers of the know- ledge of letters in those days, should alone be excluded from an advantage enjoyed by all their other allies and dependencies, is a supposition far too improbable to be entertained.* When we add to all this, that, at the time when the Irish first broke forth, as scholars and missionaries, upon Europe, they were: found in possession of modes of writing peculiar to themselves, of elements acknowledged to have no prototypes in any known language!, and differing in name, number, and order from those of every other existing alphabet, such a coincidence with all that we know of the early fortunes of the country, as well aa with all that her own traditions lay claim to, forms a case as- suredly in favour of those claims which is not to be easily con- troverted ; while there is, on the other hand, but little more than the vague doubts and cavils of a no very liberal school of scepticism opposed to all this evidence. It is thought that the Gauls, who, in the time of Csesar, made use of the Greek letters derived from the colony of Mar- seilles, had possessed originally an alphabet of their own, which was then forgotten or superseded by that of the Greeks]; ; and a similar fate seems to have attended the ancient alphabet of the Irish, as the letters adopted by them, after the mission of St. Patrick, though differing widely, as we have seen, from the Roman, in number, order, and power, bear a considerable degree of resemblance to them in shape. This, combined witli the pains St. Patrick is known to have taken to introduce among them the Roman characters, warrants the conclusion, that his efforts had thus far succeeded, and that, though unable to persuade them to adopt the additional letters, or to depart from the order of their own ancient Bethluisnon, he prevailed in inducing them to attempt those rude imitations of the Ro- man characters which their present alphabet exhibits, and habitatis, litcras ante Romanorum tempora viguisse, ipsi Romani testantur. — Rer. Hibern. Script. Ep. J^unc. * The same argument has been made use of by Astle against Wise, who held that the Egyptians were unacquainted with the use of letters. " As they had commercial intercourse," says this learned writer, " with their neighbours the Phoenicians, they probably had the knowledge of letters." t " It follows, therefore, that, as there was no prototype to copy them (the Irish alphabets) from, they must be original." — Harris on Ware, chap. iii. I " The Gauls, in particular, had evidently lost the use of their original alphabet."— JfAiiaAer, Hist, of Manchester, book i. chap. 10. sect. 6. ANCIENT IRISH ALrilABET. 63 which are acknowledged to have been, not long after, adopted from them by the Saxons.* From the near resemblance which some Irish words, imply- ing a knowledge of letters, such as a book, to read, to write, &c., bear to the Latin terms for the same objects and opera- tions, it has been hastily concluded that the Romans must have first introduced these words, and accordingly that the art to which they refer must have been also previously unknown. f But besides that to seek the source of Celtic words in the Latin, is wholly to reverse the natural course of derivation, it might just as reasonably, on the same grounds, be concluded, that the Irish were indebted to the Romans for their first know- ledge of the natural relationships of father and mother, since the words employed in the Latin and Irish to express these relations are no less evidently of a cognate origin. | An ingenious Englishman, General Vallancey,'accustomed to follow with far more zeal than judgment that clue to Ireland's antiquities which their manifest connexion with Phcenician sources supplies, has gone so far, it is well known, as to per- suade himself that in certain speeches, professing to be Punic, which are put by Plautus into the mouth of one of his drama- tic personages, he could discover genuine Irish. The casual coincidences he has pointed out between several Irish words and the corrupt jargon, as it is most probably, which Plautus produces as Punic, are certainly curious and imposing; and more than one writer of high authority, on such subjects, have lent their sanction to the supposed discovery. ^ The learned * Anglo-Saxones rationem formandi literas accepisse ab Hibernis, cum eodem plane characteusi fuerit qui hodie Hibernis est in usn.— Camden. t This was first suggested, I think, by Innes, Crit. Essaij, &c. vol. ii. sect. 2.; and Mr. Turner, in his valuable history, has condescended to follow in the same track. Innes adduces a similar reason for supposing that the an- cient Irish were unacquainted with the art of numbering. See on this sub- ject Dr. Pritchard's satisfactory work, The Eastern Origin of the Celtic JVa- tions ; particularly chap. iii. where he adduces proofs of a common origin in the vocabulary of the Celtic and other Indo-European languages. I In writing these sentences, I was little aware that the case which I here but contemplated had actually occurred ; and that, already, on the grounds above stated, it had been sapiently concluded that the ordinary relationship of father, mother, brother, &c., were unknown to the ancient Irish.—" Close as the relation was," says Mr. Wood, " between a son and his parents, brothers, and sisters, there are no words in the Celtic language distinct from those which appear to be derivations from the Latin language, and express this consanguinity. Thus athair, a father, seems to be derived from pater; matkair, a mother, from mater; bralhair, a brother, from f rater ; siur, a sister, from soror. This opinion, which was formed from the affinity observable between the derivations and the Latin, is strengthened not only by the general mode of this uncultivated family (the Celts), but by the promiscuous intercourse which subsisted," Sec— Inquiry, &c. § Lord Rosse {Defence of ancient Ireland) and Sir William Betham ;— the latter a practised Irish scholar. See his Gael and Cymbri, 64 HISTORY OF IRELAND. antiquary, however, would, in his ardour, prove too much ; and, paradoxical as the assertion may appear, the more completely his pretended case is made out, the more improbable it be- comes : since, to produce so close a conformity between the Phoenician and the Irish, as, in his zeal, he has endeavoured to make appear, it would have been necessary, in the first place, that the Punic language should have undergone no consider- able change during the six centuries that elapsed from the foundation of Carthage till the time when Plautus wrote ; and that, in the next place, Ireland herself should not only have been colonized directly from Carthage, but have retained the language, through so many centuries, little altered from its first source.* But the mere statement of such an hypothesis is a sufficient exposure of its absurdity. That process of cor- ruption by which the primitive language, or languages of Eu- rope, came to be broken up into so great a variety of dialects has continued to operate with the same rapidity ever since, till not only have the difl^erent nations, at this day, all distinct tongues, but even the early form of each of these tongues has become, in the course of a few centuries, wholly unintelligible to the direct descendants of those who first wrote and spoke it. Even in ancient times, so widely had some of the Celtic na- tions already departed from their common language, that, as appears from Poly bins, it was only through the medium of an interpreter that the Carthaginians, in the time of Hannibal, could hold communication witli the Gauls. In their prohibition of the use of letters, as a means of com- municating instructions, lay the essential point of difference between the Gaulish and Irish Druids. The declared princi- ple upon which the former abstained from recording their science — a principle held by them, we know, in common with In some instances tlie Punic of Plautus and the Irish confronted with it by Vallancey are almost identical, as will be seen by the following specimen:— Byth IjTn mo thym noctothii nel ech an ti daisc machon Ys i de lebrim thyfe lyth chy lys chon temlyph ula. IRISH. Beth liom ! mo thime noctaithe, niel ach an ti daisic mac coinne Is i de leabhraim tafach leith, chi lis con teampluibh ulla. See, for the rest, Vallancey's Irish Grammar. It appears, from a late disclosure (See Hardimaii's Irish Minstrelsy, Intro- duction), that this curious discovery of Irish in Plautus, by which Vallancey gained so much celebrity, is, after all, not his own, but was borrowed, with- out any acknowledgment, from a manuscript which came, by accident, into his hands. * Lord Rosse, Defence of Ireland. RELIGIOUS SOLEMXITIES. 65 most of the sages of antiquity — was, that Memory being the great living depositary of knowledge, it was to be feared that, if once accustomed to consign her treasures to writing, she might feel absolved from the high trust, and, by degrees, relax in her guardianship of the precious stores committed to her.* That, on this speculative point, the Irish Magi differed from the Druids of Gaul, is proved by their possession, as we have seen, of a secret form of writing, expressly designed at once to trans- mit the sacred learning to their successors, and yet effectually conceal it from the inquisitive eyes of the profane. Wherever the worship of the heavenly bodies has prevailed, there astronomy, as the natural handmaid of such a religioft, has been found likewise to flourish ; and the Phoenicians, the great sun-worshippers of antiquity, were also the greatest astrono- mers, f The skill of the Irish Druids in this science would seem, in one very important particular, to have outgone that of their brethren of Gaul, who measured the year, as we col- lect from Pliny, but by lunations, or revolutions of the moon, whereas the Irish appear to have attained some glimmering notion of the mode of reconciling, by the means of intercalary days, the difference between the lunar and solar year. This, they are alleged to have effected by adding to the 360 days, of which the twelve lunations consisted, five days and a quarter of the period annually devoted by them to the celebration of their ancient Taltine Games.| The very custom, indeed, of a great annual festival existing, for any time, among a people, would seem, of itself, to imply that, in regulating the length of their year, they employed some more certain measure than the revokitions of the moon ; since otherwise, the same confusion must, in time, have arisen, * See a remarkable passage, in tlie Phaedrus of Plato, of which the above is the substance, where the god Thoth is represented as recommending his invention of letters to a king of Egj'pt, and is answered, in a strain of acute observation, by the king. Whatever may be thought of the soundness of his arguments, as directed against all use of letters whatsoever, to a very general diffusion of that gift they will be found, I fear, but too applicable. " It would lead men," says the king, "to a sort of false and useless learning, teaching them opinions, not truth— So^tof 6s tois fxaOcTais So^av ovk oXtj- Oeiav 77op«^3(j — the natural consequence of which is, that they will become opinionated, not wise — Ao^oaocpoi avri cocpoiv" t " That which hath given the Sabians the greatest credit among the peo- ple of the East is, that the best of their astronomers have been of this sect ; for the stars being the gods they worshipped, they made them the chief sub- ject of their studies:'— Prideaux's Connection, book iii. part i. X Q,uemadmodum in nostro Civili Compute, annus, universali consensu constat diebus tantum 365, excepto quovis anno quarto seu Bissextili dierum 366, sic etiam apud Druidos Hibernos invaluisse assero artem, qua Ludos Taltinios ad Solstitia, expletis Lunationibus 12 accommodabant, quinque dies cum quadrante addentes anno Lunari dierum 360, ut popularera annum adimplerent.— iier. Hibern. Script. Prol. 1. 34. 6* 66 HISTORY OF IRELAND. on the recurrence of such a festival, as provoked the ridicule of Aristophanes against the calendar of the Greeks. But, among the Irish, there appear to have been observed, at least, three annual festivals, each marking one of those Raths^ or quarters, into which their year was divided. Beginnmg the year, in the manner of the Persians, at the Vernal Equinox, they then solemnized their great Fire Feast, La Bealtinne ; and the second Rath, which commenced at the Summer Sols- tice, and was called the Course, or Season of Gaiety, they sig- nalized by the celebration of the Taltine Games, or Sports. In three months after were performed, in the Field of Howl- ing, those dreadful sacrifices, of which mention has already been made, and by which the opening of the third Rath, or Autumnal Equinox, was commemorated.* The three remain- ing months of the year, unmarked, as far as appears, by any periodical solemnity, except the usual lighting up of fires on the high places, constituted the fourth Rath, or quarter. The degree of knowledge as to the equinoctial and solstitial points, which this division of the twelve months seems to im- ply, would incline us to believe, that the ancient Irish were not entirely unacquainted with that first approach to a correct measure of time, the luni-solar year ; and some of the terms employed, in their language, on the subject, tend to confirm this view. Thus, the year was called by them Bel-ain, or the Circle of the Sun, while the Zodiac they named Beach-Grian, or the Revolution of the Sun ; and the Solstices were termed Grian-stad, or the Sun's stopping places. It has been conjec- tured, and with much probability, that the stone circles of the Druids were employed no less as rude observatories than as places of judicature and worship ; and the position, in most of them, of the great perpendicular stones, of which some, it is said, are placed generally in or near the meridian of the spot, while others are as carefully stationed to the right or left of the centref, would seem to indicate, in their construction, some view to astronomical purposes. | It is remarked, too, that they are situated chiefly on eminences commanding an extensive * Rer. Hibern. Script. Ep. Nunc. t King's Munimenta Antiqua, vol. i. t For the same purpose, it would appear that upright stones and rocks were employed by the Goths and Sucons. " They have no use," says Olaus, "of sun dials, but they use only the high stones of rocks that are placed partly by nature, partly by cunning, that by an infallible conjecture do overshadow the sunbeams and distinguish the parts of the dny."— Olaus Magnus, book i. chap. 19. In the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xiv., may be found an account of a remarkable old building on the north side of Kenmare river, called Staigne Fort, and supposed, by Mr. Nimmo, to have been originally DIVISION OF T13IE. 67 rang"e of horizon ; and a circle thus placed, in Merionethshire, is called Cerig Brudyn, or the Astronomer's Stones, or Circle.* A similar monument, bearing much the same designation, is described by antiquaries as existing near Dundalk, In addition to this and other remains, supposed to have been connected as well with astronomy as with religion, the ancient Irish had also their Round Towers, or Fire-Temples, which appear to have been applied to the same double purpose. It is, indeed, highly probable, from the name " Celestial Indexes" affixed to them by the chroniclers, that one of the chief uses of these structures was to stand as gigantic gnomons, and by their shadows measure, from solstice to solstice, the gradual in- crease and decrease of the day. From a passage which occurs in an old life of Moctheus, the first Bishop of Louthf, it has been conjectured that the division of time, by the week or cycle of seven days, was not unknown to the Pagan Irish ; and if there be any good grounds for such a notion, it affords an additional confirmation of the very early origin claimed for Druidism ; since it appears, that soon after the lapse of mankind into idolatry, the observance of the Mundane week fell everywhere into disuse, excepting only among the family of Abraham, by whom it was faithfully preserved, and from them transmitted down through the de- scendants of Ishmael to tlie Mahometans.^ intended for an observatory. See his reasons annexed to the essay.—" It appeared to me," he says, " that the structure exhibited a sort of rude gradu- ation of the horizon." *" There is also, in Ireland," says King, " an astronomer's hill belonging to the Druids, called Carrick Edraond, which cannot but remind us of the Kerrig Edris in Wales." \ Peractis vero, ut moris erat Genlilium, dicbns septem cxequiarum. X This view of the history of the Sabbatical institution may be found argued at some length, and \ipon apparently solid grounds, liy a commentator on Pliny, lib. xvi. c. 95. (Valpy'« Edition). This writer, however, denies that the Druids were acquainted with the hebdomadal cycle. " Cluod hie obiter annotandum est, mirum profecto nullum apud Romanos Graecosvc vel hos etiam Druidos, hebdomadarum usum fuisse. Cyclum scilicet septem dierum Deum ipsummet habet auctorem : sed Abrahfe temporibus neglectus ab hominibus quia essent in idolotatriam omnes fere prolapsi. Sola hunc ser vavit Abraha; domus : et mos solis Abrahae posteris est cognitus." According to one of Whitaker's etymological conjectures, not only did the British Druids observe the cycle of seven days, but the name Sabaith, he thinks, was likewise given by them to their Sunday, or Day of the Sun, though bearing an entirely different meaning from that of the Sabbath of the Jews ; " and it was in order," he says, " to take advantage of this acci- dental coincidence, that the Jewish Sabbath was transferred by the Chris- tians to the Druidical Sunday."— Celtic Vocabulary, p. 91. 68 HISTORY OF IRELAND. CHAPTER V. POETIC, OR BARDIC, ACCOUNT OF THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF IRl So intermixed together are reality and fiction in the first record of most nations, and each, in passing through the me- dium of tradition, assumes so deceivingly the features of the other, that the attempt to distinguish between them is a task of no ordinary responsibility ; more especially where national vanity has become interested in the result ; or where, as in the case of Ireland, a far deeper feeling of wounded pride seeks relief from the sense of present humiliation and suffering, in Buch indistinct dreams of former glory. As the earliest chroniclers, too, of most countries, have been poets, the duty of stripping off those decorations and disguises in which matter of fact comes frequently arrayed from such hands, is, in general, the first the historian is called upon to perform; and often, in attempting to construct truth out of materials so shadowy. History has become but the interpreter of the dreams of Poesy. By this process it is that the fanciful fictions of Greece and of Egypt have been resolved into real records of human personages and events; and even their Gods, dislodged from their high station, have been brought back by history to the humble earth from whence they sprung. Far different, however, from the mythic traditions of these classical nations are the dry memorials of past adventures and person- ages which our native historians have handed down ; and while to the Greeks belonged the power of throwing gracefully the veil of fiction over reality, the Bardic Historians may lay claim to the very different merit of lending to the wildest and most extravagant fictions the sober lineaments of fact. Respecting the degree of credit due to the early history of Ireland, two directly opposite opinions are entertained ; — both equally, as in all such questions, removed from the fair medium of truth. While to some the accounts given by the Bardic writers of all that passed in the ancient Pagan times appear undeserving of any credit whatsoever, — their opinion being, that it is only with the dawn of the Christian faith in that country, that its history begins to assume any credible shape — there are others, on the contrary, who believe in all that flat- ters their feeling of national glory, surrendering their reason wilfully to the guidance of fanciful historians, who,, by means of a deceptive system of chronology, have invested fable with IRISH CHRONICLES. 69 much of the grave and authoritative aspect of history. Between these two extreme views of the subject, the over-sceptical and the credulous, a just medium may, as in most sucli cases, be found ; and the true value of our traditionary memorials be cor- rectly ascertained, without either questioning indiscriminately their claims to credence with the one party, or going headlong into the adoption of all their fictions and extravagances with the other. The publication, by Doctor O'Connor, the late reverend librarian of Stowe, of the Irish Chronicles, in their original language, accompanied by a Latin translation and explanatory notes, has, for the first time"^, put the world in possession of the means of judging for itself of the truth and value of docu- ments which had before only been known through the reports of modern Irish writers, conveyed in all the vagueness of allu- sion and mist of paraphrase. To the real importance of these records, which differ whol- ly, m form, matter, and authenticity,, from those compilations of the middle ages of which mention has just been made, there will occur, in the course of this work, opportunities of more particularly adverting. Our business, at present, as well with them as with the other class of documents alluded to, which, though branching out so extravagantly into fable, have often their roots laid deep in traditional truth, must be to refer to them merely as repositories of the ancient traditions of the country, as retaining traces of those remote times to which no history reaches, and as, therefore, of use in the task imposed upon all inquirers into the first origin of a people, — that of seeking, through the dim vista of tradition, some glimmerings of truth. And even here, in this obscure region of research, it is far less in the actual events related by the Bards and Seanachies, than in the absurdly remote period to which the first links of their chain of tradition is carried, that any very insurmountable obstacle to our belief in most of their narra- tives lies : and this disposition to extend and elevate their anti- quity, has marked the first imperfect attempts at chronology in all countries. Even among some whose history, in other * In the work of Keating, written originally in Irish, are embodied most of the old national traditions; but, besides that he has strung them together without any selection or judgment, and but seldom attempts to discriminate between the record of the annalist and the fable of the bard, his work has to answer, it seems, for even more than its own original extravagances, as some of the fictions that most disfigure it, and have most contributed to draw down ridicule on Irish history, are said to have been the fraudulent interpolations of his translator, Dermod O'Connor. The aptest description of Keating's hook is that given by the clever and turbulent Peter Talbot, who pronounces it " Insigne plane, sed insanum opus." 70 HISTORY OF IRELAND. I respects, has received the authenticating sanction of ages, the same ambition is known to have prevailed. Thus, in the cal-"^ culations of the Egyptians, the interval between two of their kings was made to occupy no less a period than 11,340 years ; and yet that two such kings really existed, and were named Menes and Sethon, is accounted by no means the less probable or historical for this absurd flight of calculation ; nor is it at all questioned, that under the serene skies of Chaldaea astronomy may have had its birth, because that people boasted of having made observations upon the stars through a period of 470,000 years. So far back in the night of time have our Bardic Historians gone in quest of materials, that, from the very first age of the world, we find marked out by them a regular series of epochs, which have each been signalized by the visit of some new; colony to their shores. Beginning a few weeks before the Flood, when as they say, a niece of Noah, named Cesara, arrived with a colony of antediluvians upon the Irish coast*,^ they from thence number, through the lapse of ages, no less than five or six diflferent bands of adventurers, by which the 5 island, at various intervals, had been conquered and colonized. To dwell, at any length, on the details of the earlier of these settlements, — details possessing neither the certainty of history, nor the attractiveness of fable, — can hardly be deemed necessary. Still so much of truth is occasionally intermixed with their fictions, and so many curious, if not important speculations, have arisen out of this period of Irish history, that to pass it over without some degree of notice, would be to leave the task attempted in tliese pages incomplete. From the time of Cesara, who is allowed on all hands to have been a purely fabulous personage, there occurs no men- tion of any colony till about the beginning of the fourth cen- tury after the Flood, when Ireland was invaded, and taken possession of, by a chief, of the race of Japhet, named Par- tholan, who, landing at Imbersciene, in Kerry, says O'Fla- herty, " the 14th day of May, on a Wednesday," fixed his resi- * According to Bardic authorities, cited by Keating, tlie arrivals in Ire- land, before the Deluge, were numerous; aiid, among other visiters, three daughters of Cain are mentioned. The famous White Book, so much ridi- culed by some of the Scotch controversialists, is the authority cited for this story. See chapter headed, " Of the first Invasion of Ireland before the Flood." It is probable that for most, if not all, of the wild inventions respecting Partholan and the Nemedians, we are indebted to a poet or Seanachie of the tenth century, named Eochaidh O'Floinn, of whose numerous writings an account may be found in the Transactions of the Iberno-Celtic Society for 1820. FABLES OF THE IRISH BARDS. 71 dence in the province of Ulster, upon an island named Inis- Samer, in the river Erne. The fables related by the Irish bards respecting Partholan, — his faithless wife, her favourite greyhound, the seven lakes that burst forth after his arrival, — may all be found in the rhyming form that best suits them, in the marvellous pages of Keating. After holding possession of the country for three hundred years, the race of Partholan were all swept away by a plague ; and the Hill of Howth, then called Ben-Heder, was the scene of the most awful rav- ages of this pestilence. To this colony succeeded another, about the time, it is said, of the patriarch Jacob, who were called, from the name of their leader, Nemedians, and are said to have come from the shores of the Euxine Sea. The fierce wars waged by this people with the Fomorians, a tribe of African sea-rovers, who then infested the coast of Ireland, form one of the most pic- turesque subjects of tlie ancient Irish Muse. The stronghold of these African mariners, who are supposed, not improbably, to have been Carthaginian traders, was the Tower of Conan, which stood upon an island on the sea-coast of Ulster, named from this structure Tor-inis, or the Island of the Tower. This fortress the Nemedians stormed; and, after dislodging from thence their formidable enemy, left not a trace of the mighty structure standing. An Irish poem called " The Storming of the Tower of Conan," still exists in the noble library of Stowe. The Fomorians, however, having been joined by fresh supplies of force, a general battle, by land and sea, ensued, in which the Africans were victorious, and the Nemedian colony being all dispersed and destroyed, the country was once more left at the mercy of those foreign marauders, and relapsed into wildness and desolation for the space of two hundred years. The next; and, in number, the third, of these colonies, which was known to the Irish, by the name of Fir-Bolgs, first imposed upon them, it is said, the yoke of regal authority, and dividing the island into five parts or provinces, established that pentarchal form of government, which continued, with but few interruptions, till the twelfth century of our era. The five sons of Dela, under whose command the colony had landed, shared the kingdom, according to this division, between them*, placing a stone in the centre of the island at the spot * According to Hanmer's Clironicle, there arose dissensions between these brothers, and the youngest, Slainge, having, fas Hanmer expresses it,) " en- croached round about the middle stone and hxed meare aforesaid," usurped at length the sole rule of the country. HISTORY OF IRELAND. where their five ^ shares met. Their tenure of royalty, ho\ ever, was but short ; for, not more than thirty or forty years hs this quintuple sovereignty remained in their hands, when the) were dispossessed by the Tuatha-de-Danaan, a people famec for necromancy, who, after sojourning* for some time in Greece, where they had learned this mysterious art, proceeded from thence to Denmark and Norway, and became possessors, while in those countries, of certain marvellous treasures, amon^ which were the Stone of Destiny, the sorcerer's spear, am the magic caldron. Armed with these wonderful gifts*, th< tribe of the Danaans next found their way to Scotland, and after a rest there for some years, set sail, under the auspices of their chieftain, Nuad of the Silver Handf, for Ireland Here, landing secretly, under cover of a mist which theii enchantments had raised, these sorcerers penetrated into th< country, and had reached Sliabh an laruinn, the Mountain a Iron, between .the lakes of Allen and Eirne, before their pre sence was discovered. The alarmed Belgians, thus taken b] surprise, retreated before them rapidly into Connaught, where at Moytura, on the borders of Lake Masg, that sanguinar] battle took place, which, under the name of the Battle of th< Field of the Tower, was long a favourite theme of Iris| song. I Defeated signally by their invaders, the Belgians fle< * In one of the old Irish romances, on the subject of Finn Mac Com hs lliat hero is imagined to have derived a portion of liis knowledge from th waters of a certain magical fountain, which was in the possession of th( Tuatlia-de-Danaan, and of which a single draught was sold for three hundred ounces of gold. t So called from an artificial silver hand, which he wore to supply the los sustained from a wound he received in the battle of Moytura. We are toU seriously by OTlaherty, that "Cred, a goldsmith, formed the hand, and Miach the son of Dian Kect, well instructed in the practical parts of chirurgery, se the arm." — Ogygia, part iii. ch. 10. One of the grandsons of this Nuad, named Brittanus, or Maol Briotan, i said to have passed over, after their defeat, into North Britain ; and froii him, according to the Psalter of Cashel, the Britons derived their origin. IS this tradition Camden alludes, in a note on his Introduction :—" Britanni) dicta est a quodam qui vocabatur Britannus." There is also another of tti grandsons of Nuad, named Simon Breac, who is made to play a distinguishc part in the Scotch version of our Milesian story ; being represented thereil as the importer of the famous Stone of Destiny, and even substituted, in plac of Heremon, as the founder of the Milesian monarchy. {Fordun, l.i. c. 3( See, also, Slillingjieet's Origin. Britan. cap. 5.) The Scotch antiquarians however, seem to have confounded this primitive 3imon Breac with anothe of the same name, also grandson of a King Nuad, who flourished four centi ries later. See Innes, vol. ii. sect. 2. \ There are in the library of Stowe, says Dr. O'Connor, no less than fiyi metrical chronicles, in which this battle of Moytura is commemorated.— /2c« Hibern. Script. Prol. ii. 37. TUATHA-DE-DANAAN. 73 to the Isle of Man, North Aran*, and the Hebrides, and the victorious Danaans became in their turn sole masters of the country. In process of time, the Tuatha-de-Danaan were themselves dispossessed of their sway ; a successful invasion from the coast of Spain having put an end to the Danaanian dynasty, and transferred the sceptre into the hands of that Milesian or Scotic race, which, through so long a series of succeeding ages, sup- plied Ireland with her kings, • This celebrated colony, though coming directly from Spain, was originally, we are told, of Scythic race, and its various migrations and adventures before reaching its Isle of Destiny in the West, are detailed by our Bards, with all that fond and lingering minuteness in which fancy, playing with its own creations, so much delights to in- dulge. Grafting upon this Scythic colony the traditional traces and stories of their country, respecting the Phcenicians, they have contrived to collect together, without much regard to either chronology, history, or geography, every circumstance that could tend to dignity and add lustre to such an event ; — an event upon which not only the rank of their country itself in the heraldry of nations depended, but in which every indi- vidual, entitled by his Milesian blood to lay claim to a share in so glorious a pedigree, v/as interested. In order more com- pletely to identify the ancestors of these Scythic colonists with the Phcenicians, they relate that by one of them, named Fenius, to whom the invention of the Ogham character is attributed, an academy for languages was instituted upon the Plain of Shenaar, in which that purest dialect of the Irish, called the Bearla Feini, was cultivated. From thence tracing this chosen race in their migrations to different countries, and, connecting them, by marriage or friend- ship, during their long sojourn in Egypt, with most of the heroes of Scripture history, our Bards conduct them at length, by a route, not very intelligible, to Spain. There, by their valour and enterprise, they succeed in liberating the country from its Gothic invaders f , and, in a short time, make them- selves masters of almost the whole kingdom. Still haunted, however, in the midst of their glory, by the remembrance of * See Sketch of the History and Antiquities of the Southern Isles of A#an, by John T. O'Flaherty, Trans, of Royal Irish Academy, vol. xiv. t We have here a specimen of that art of annihilating both space andtfme which is so prodigally exhibited throughout the Milesian story. Among the many different nations that in succession became masters of Spain, the occu- pation of that kingdom by the Goths, which is here assumed as having taken place in the remote Milesian times, did not really occur till about the begin- ning of the fifth century of our era. Vol. I. 7 74 HISTOKY or IliELAND. a prophecy, which had declared that an island in the Western Sea was to be their ultimate place of rest, the two sons of their great leader, Milesius, at len^h fitted out a grand martial expedition, and set sail, in thirty ships, from the coast of Gal- licia for Ireland. According to the Bardic chronology, 1300 years before the birth of Christ, but according to Nennius, iEngus * and others, near five centuries later, this " lettered and martial colony," (to use the language of one of its most zealous championsf), arrived under the command of the sons of Milesius, on the Irish coasts; and having effected a landing at Inbher Sceine, the present Bantry Bay, on Thursday, the first of May, a. m, 2934 1, achieved that great and memorable victory over the Tuatha-de-Danaan ^, which secured to them- * Psttlter-na-Rann. iEiigus is here referred to merely as the putative author of this work, a liigrh authority having pronounced that there are no grounds for attributing it to him. (Lanigan, Kcclesiastiral History of Ire- land, vol. 3. c. 20.) The very nature, indeed, of some of the contents of this Psalter, if, as Bishop Nicholson asserts, it contains a catalogue of the kings of Ireland, from Ileremon down to Brian Boroimhe, who was slain in 1014, siiows that it could not have been the production of a writer of the f;ighth century. t Dissertations on Irish History, sect. 21. t Ogygia, part iii. ch. 16. O'Flaherty has here reduced, it will be observed, the calculation of the Bards, and computes the date of liis landing to have been only a thousa)id years before our era ; while Keating adheres to the authority of the Psalter of Cashol, in fixing it three centuries earlier. The author of Dissertations on the History of Ireland, (as I shall henceforth de- signate Mr. O'Connor of Bclanagare, in order to distinguish him from his reverend descendant, the late librarian of Stowe,) at first adopted the calcu- lation of O'Flaherty, but saw reason afterwards to abate near five centuries of that date (see Ogiig. Vindic, preface ; also. Reflections on History of Ire- land, Collcctan. No. 10) ; and Dr. O'Connor is content to refer the coming of the Milesians to the year before Christ 489. (Her. Hibcrn. Script. Prol. ii. 45.) The most extravagant, however, of all the computations of this event is that made by Donald O'Neil, a king of Ulster, who, writing in the year 1317, to Pope John XXII., assures his holiness that the Milesian colony settled in Ire- land about 2300 years before the Christian era. See Fordun, (Scotichron.) to whom we must trust for the authenticity of this curious document. It is also quoted, but without reference to any authority, by Usher, Kccles. ^ntiquitat. c. 1(5. In endeavouring to fix the period of the Argonautic expedition, the learned author of The Remains of Japhet comes gravely to the conclusion that it must have been about the same number of years from the flood as the beginning of the reign of the Milesians ; and adds, " so that if Jason did sail to Ireland, it must have been soon after the establishment of the Milesians in that kingdom." § The fondness of the Irish for their old national traditions is shown in the names given to remarkable places throughout the country, most of which may be traced to some famous hero or heroine, commemorated in ancient songs and tales. Even the shore on which the antediluvian nymph Cesara was said to have been buried, used to be pointed out, in the days of Giraldus, with reverence. (Topog. Dist. 3. c. 1.) Memorials, in like manner, of the great battle between the Milesians and the Tuatha-de-Danaan were preserved for ages on the spot where that combat is said to have occurred. Not only of the chieftains, but of the ladies and druids who fell in the fight, the names were associated with the valleys and hills in that neighbourhood. An old poem on the Battle of Sliabh-Mis is referred to by Smith, {History of Kerry,) COLONIZATION OF IRELAND. 75 selves and their princely descendants, for more thah 2 the supreme dominion over all Ireland. jrffjSf -^' CHAPTER VI. HISTORICAL VIEW OF TIIK COLONIZATION OF IREl!^5y[). Q^ Mbra When stripped of their fanciful dates, and reduced due bounds of antiquity, these traditions of the first settlements in Ireland, however fabulously coloured, may be taken as pre- serving the memory of some of those early invasions, of which, in times when the migratory spirit was alive over the whole earth, this island must frequently have been the object. The story of a colony, in remote ages, under a chieftain of the race of Japhet, falls in with the hypothesis of those who, in tracuig westward the migration of the Noachidse, include both Britain and Ireland among those Isles of the Gentiles * which became, on the partition of the earth, tlie appanage of the descendants of Japhet. The derivation of a later settlement, the Neme- dians, from some country near the Euxine Sea, coincides no less aptly with the general current of European tradition, ac- cording to which the regions in the neighbourhood of the Caucasian mountains are to be regarded as the main source of the population of the Westf We have shown it to be probable, as well from foreign as from native tradition, that Ireland derived her primitive popu- lation fi-om Spain. The language brought by these first settlers was that which was common then to all the Celts of Europe. Those Spanish colonies, therefore, placed by Ptolemy on the south and south-western coasts of Ireland, must have arrived there at some much later period, when the dialect of the Celtic anciently spoken in Spain had become corrupted by mixture with other tongues ; as it is plainly from these later Spanish settlers must have flowed that infusion into the Irish language of a number of Basque or Cantabrian words, which induced who adds, tliat " the monumental stones said, in the above poem, to have been erected over the graves of the noble warriors, are still remaining on Mount Cahirconree, one of the Sliabhmis mountains in Kerry." * The first language spoken in Europe, says Parsons, was the Japhetan, called afterwards the Pelasgian ; " and this language," he asserts, " is now to be found only in Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, and Wales." Ac- cording to the Chronicle of the Celtic Kings, Japhet was the first British monarch. See Sammes, ch. 10. {■ See Sir William Jones's Sixth Discourse, On the Persians. 76 HISTORY OF IRELAND. the learned antiquary, Edward Lhuyd, to imagine a degree of affinity between these tongues.* In the direction of Spain, it is most likely, whatever of • foreign commerce or intercourse the ancient Irish may have possessed, was, down to a comparatively recent period, main- tained. The description given, indeed, by a poet of our own days, of the geographical position of Ireland, as standing " with her back turned to Europe, her face to the West," is far more applicable to the state of her political and commercial rela- tions in those times of which we are speaking. Wholly with- drawn from the rest of Europe, her resort lay along the shores of the Atlantic alone ; and that commerce which frequented her ports in the first century of our era, was maintained, not certainly with the Romans, to whom she was then and for ages after unknown, but with Iberian merchants most probably, and with those descendants of the ancient Phoenician settlers who inhabited the western coasts of Spain, A remark above applied to the Spanish colonization, will be found applicable also to the colonies from Gaul. Whatever share may have been contributed by that country to the first Celtic population of Ireland, it was not till a much later pe- riod, most probably, that the Gaulish colonies, named by Ptole- my, established themselves in the island. The people called Fir-Bolgs by the Bards were, it is evident, Belgae, of the same race with those in Britain ; but at what period they fixed them- selves in either country, and whether those wlio took possession of Ireland were derived mediately through Britain, or direct from Belgic Gaul, are questions that must still remain open to conjecture. The Menapii and the Cauci, both nations of the Belgic coastf, came directly, it is most probable, to Ireland, as * •' As, by collating the laiij,niages, I have found one i)art of the Irish reconcileable to tlie Welsh; so, by a (lilii.s^sfr/ar/o7t on the ScvtJdans or (Hothi, part ii. ch. 4. 7 -(^ 78 HISTORY OF IliELAXD. others, reinforced recently by the able concurrence of Dr. Pritchard*, have held the Belgee to be of Celtic origin, several distinguished writers, on the other hand, among whom is the author of the learned Enquiry into the Rise of the English Commonwealthf, have, as it appears to me, on far more tenable grounds, both of reasoning and authority, pronounced this peo- ple to have been of purely Teutonic descent. With respect to Ireland, the term Scythic, applied to the Belgic colony, leads to the inference that they were there held to be a northern or Gothic race ; and that their language must have been different from that of the Celtic natives, appears from the notice taken in the Book of Lecane|, of a particular form of speech known by the name of the Belgaid. The Tuatha-de-DanEians, by whom the Beiges were, as we have seen, defeated and supplanted, are thought by some to have been a branch of the Damnonians of Cornwall ; while others, more consistently with tradition, derive their origin from those Damnii of North Britain, who inhabited the districts in the neighbourhood of the river Dee and the Frith of Clyde.§ Of the historical verity of these two colonies, the Fir-Bolgs and Danaans, no doubt can be entertained ; as down to a pe- riod within the fair compass of history, the former were still a * Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. One of tlie reasons alleged bj- this writer, for supposing the Belgic to have been akin to the Erse is, that " several nani the Walli or Welsh, bestowed upon them by the invaders ■| , may be traced as acting" a distinguished part in the affairs dP Britain for many centuries after. To this epoch of their northern kingdom, all the traditions of the modern Welsh refer for their most boasted antiquities, and favourite themes of romance.f The name of their chival- rous hero, Arthur, still lends a charm to much of the topogra- phy of North Britain ; and among the many romantic traditions connected with Stirling Castle, is that of its having once been the scene of the festivities of the Round Table. The poets Aneurin and Taliessen, the former born in the neighbourhood of the banks of the Clydef, graced the court, we are told, of Urien, the king of Reged, or Cumbria ; and the title Caledo- nius bestowed on the enchanter Merlin, who was also a native of Strat-Clyde, sufficiently attests his northern and Pictish race. It may be added, as another strong confirmation of the identity between the Strat-Clyde Welsh and the Picts, that from the time of the total defeat of the latter by Keneth Macalpine, king of the Scots, no further mention occurs of the kingdom of Strat-Clyde. The traditional story of the utter extinction of the Pictish people at this period, so far as to have left, we are told, not even a vestige of their language, bears upon the face of it the marks of legendary fiction ; while the fact of their ancient title of Picts having been, about this time, eclipsed by their new designation of Walli, accounts satisfac- torily for the origin and general belief of such a fable. With respect to the period at which this people may be sup- posed ta have fixed themselves in Wales, a series of migra- * The name, says Camden, by which " the Saxon conqueror called foreign- ers, and every thing that was strange." t Most of the great Welsh pedigrees, too, commence their line from princes of the Cumbrian Kingdom, and the archaiologist Lhuyd himself boasts of his descent from ancestors in the " province of Ileged in Scotland, in the fourth century, before the Saxons came into Britain." — Pref. to ^rclimologia. There is, however, visibly and fropi motives by no means unintelligible, an unwillingness, on the part of modern Welsh historians, to bring much into notice this northern seat of Cymbric enterprise and renown. For the name of Cumbria that of Reged is usually substituted, and the founders of their kingdom in Wales are alleged to have been the sons of a northern prince, named Cynetha, or Cenetha (evidently their Scottish king Kenneth), who, " leaving Cumberland and some neighbouring countries, where they ruled, to the government of one of their family, retired into North Wales, their grandmother's country, and seated themselves in the several divisions of it, as their names left on those places do to this day testify."— i2a«;Zan(i's Mona Antiqua, sect. ii. See also Warrington's Hist, of Wales, book i. X The river Clyde, in North Wales, was, it is clear, named by the new pos- sessors of that country, after the Clyde of their old kingdom in Scotland. THE PICTS IN THE NORTH OF IRELAND. 95 tions thither from Cumbria, at different intervals, have been recorded by the Chroniclers ; and, among others, it is said that, in the year 890, a body of emigrants, under the command of a chief named Constantine, fought their wa,y through the ranks of the Saxons to that country. But their mam move- ment towards the south, whether voluntarily, or under pres- sure from the invader, must have occurred at a much earlier period, — not more than a century, probably, from the time of their first outbreak from their own hills ; as, before the end of the sixth age, they had already possessed themselves both of Wales and of Cornwall, and established a colony, appa- rently by conquest, in the province of Armoric Gaul. Much more might be added in corroboration of this view of the origin of the Welsh, but that already, perhaps, I have dwelt somewhat more diffusely upon it than may seem to be justified by the immediate object I had in view, which was, by inquiring into the most probable history of the Pictish peo- ple of Britain, to gain some clue to that of their fellow Scythians, the Scoti of Ireland ; as well as some insight into the race and origin of those Cruithene, or Painted Men, who, about the same period, took up their abode in a part of the pro- vince of Ulster. With respect to the Scoti, the probability of their having been a Scandinavian people* is considerably strengthened by the weight of evidence and authority which pronounces the Picts to have been a colony from the same quarter, as their joint history is thus rendered concurrent and consistent ; and it seems naturally to have followed from the success of the former in gaining possession of Ireland, that others of the adventurous rovers of the North should try their fortunes in the same region. Of that detachment of Pictish adventurers which fixed their quarters, as we have said, in the North of Ireland, there will occur occasions to take some no- tice, in the course of the following pages. I shall here only remark that, by their intermixture with the primitive inhabit- ants of the country, they were doubtless the means of engraft- * Bishop Stillingfleet declares strongly in favour of the opinion that the Picts " were from the same parts" as the Scots ; but interprets Bede's words rather too favourably for his purpose, when he represents him as saying that " on being carried by a tempest to Ireland, they found there Gentem Scoto- rum, i. e. (adds the bishop) their countrymen, the Scythians." Among the most convincing indications of their having been kindred tribes, are those deduced by Buchanan, from their facility of intercourse on first meeting, their mutual confidence and intermarriages, and the amicable neighbour- hood of their settlement afterwards in North Britain. " Facile majores Pictorum Scotis fuisse conciliates puto, atque ab eisdem, ut traditur, adjutos, ut homines cognates, ejusdem fere linguae nee dissimilium rituum."— Zfwt. Scot. lib. ii. 27. 96 HISTORY OF IRELAND. I whicM o larJ ing on the native tongue those words of Cimbric origin whici notwithstanding the radical difference between the two lan3 guages, has given to the Irish and the Welsh so imposing an appearance of affinity.* CHAPTER VII. HISTORY OF IRELAND FROM THE LANDING OF THE SCOTI COLONY ARRIVAL OF ST. PATRICK. 4 TOTn In commencing his history of the Milesian or Scotic mon- archs, by far the most trustworthy of the Irish annalists in- forms us, " that all the records of the Scots, before the time of king Kimbaoth, are uncertain."! This monarch, who, accord- ing to the senachies, was the seventy-fifth king of Ireland, and the fifty-seventh of the Milesian dynasty, flourished, as we learn from the same authorities, about 300 years before Christ: but the learned Dr. O'Connor, by whom the lists of the an- cient kings have been examined with a degree of zeal and patience worthy of a far better task, has shown that, accord- ing to the regal lists of the senachies themselves, the reign of Kimbaoth cannot be carried back to a remoter date than 200 years before our era. The reader who has attended, however, to the facts adduced in the foregoing pages, proving how groundless are the claims to a remote antiquity which have been advanced for the Scotic or Milesian colony, will, I doubt not, be of opinion that a scheme of chronology which supposes the fifty-sixth monarch of the Scotic dynasty to have existed 200 or 300 years before the birth of Christ, may be got rid of with a much less expenditure of learning and labour than it has cost Dr. O'Connor, and other such zealots in the cause of antiquity, to establish and support it. ♦ The amount of this resemblance between the two languages appears to be, after all, but trifling. " There is," says Mr. Roberts, the intelligent Welsh scholar, already quoted, " about one word in fifteen similar, but rarely the same, in sound and signification, in both languages. In the first nine columns of the Irish Dictionary, printed by Lhuyd in his Archaeologia, there are 400 words, of which I have not been able to discover more than twenty, in common to both languages, nor have I succeeded better in several tnals. Moreover, the grammatical structure, as to the declension and construction, are radically different." — Chronicle of the Kings of Britain. A learned German glossologist, Adelung, is also to be numbered among those who consider the Welsh tongue to be a descendant from that of the Belgffi, and not from that of the Celtce. * Tigernach.—" Omnia monumenta Scotorum usque Cimbaoth incerta erant." For some account of this annalist, who died a. d. 1088, see Ware's Writers.— i?er. Hibem. Scrip, torn. ii. &c. &c. HEBER AND HEREMON, SONS OF MILESIUS. 97 Without entering at present, however, into any further ex- amination of the chronological reckonings and regal lists of the antiquaries, or pointing out how far, in spite of the extra- vagant dates assigned to them, the reality of the events them- selves may be relied upon, I shall proceed to lay before the reader a sketch of the history of Pagan Ireland, from the time of the landing of the Scotic colony, to the great epoch of the conversion of the Irish to Christianity by St. Patrick. Into any of those details of war and bloodshed which form so large a portion of our annals. Pagan as well as Christian, I shall not think it necessary to enter ; while, of the civil trans- actions, my object will be to select principally those which appear to be most sanctioned by the general consent of tradi- tion, and afford, at least, pictures of manners, even where they may be thought questionable as records of fact. A decisive victory over the Tuatha-de-Danaan, the former possessors of the country, having transferred the sovereignty to Heber and Heremon, the sons of the Spanish king Milesius, these two brothers divided the kingdom between them ; and while Leinster and Munster were, it is said, the portion as- signed to Heber, the younger brother, Heremon, had for his share the provinces of Ulster and Connaught. There was also a third brother, Amergin, whom they appointed Arch-Bard, or presiding minister over the respective departments of Law'*", Poetry, Philosophy, and Religion. In the divided sovereignty thus exercised by the family, may be observed the rudiments of that system of government which prevailed so long among tlieir successors ; while, in the office of the Arch-Bard we trace the origin of those metrical legislators and chroniclers who took so prominent a part in public affairs under all the Scotic princes. In another respect, it must be owned, the commencement of the Milesian monarchy was marked strongly by the features which but too much characterized its whole course. A beau- tiful valley, which lay in the territories of Heremon, had been, for some time, a subject of dispute between the two brothersf ; * " Amerjn;in was the Brehon of the colony, and was also a poet and philo- sopher." — O'Reilly on the Brehon Laws. fThe particulars of this quarrel are thus stated by Keating:—" The occa- sion of the dispute was the possession of three of the most delightful valleys in the whole island. Two of these lay in the division of Heber Fionn, and he received the profits of them ; but his wife, being a woman of great pride and ambition, envied the wife of Heremon the enjoyment of one of those delightful valleys, and, therefore, persuaded her husband to demaiad the valley of Heremon ; and, upon a refusal, to gain possession of it by the sword ; for she passionately vowed she never would be satisfied till she was called the Queen of the three most fruitful Vallej's in the Island." Vol. I. 9 98 HISTORY OF IRELAND. and their differences at length kindling into animosity, led to a battle between them on the plains of Geisiol, where Heber lost his life, leaving Heremon sole possessor of the kingdom. Even the peaceful profession of the Arch-Poet Amergin did not ex- empt him from the effects of the discord thus early at work; as, in a subsequent battle, this third son of Milesius fell also a victim to his brother Heremon's sword.* To the reign of Heremon, the Bardic historians refer the first coming of the people called Picts into these regions. Landing upon the eastern coast of Ireland, they proposed to establish themselves on the island ; but the natives, not deem- ing such a settlement expedient, informed them of other islands, on the north-east, which were uninhabited, and where they might fix their abode. To this suggestion the Picts readily assented, but first desired that some of the Milesian women might be permitted to accompany them ; pledging themselves solemnly that, should they become masters of that country they were about to invade, the sovereignty should be ever after vested in the descendants of the female line.f This request having been granted, the Pictish chiefs, accompanied by their Milesian wives, set sail for the islands bordering on Scotland, and there established their settlement. Passing over the immediate successors of Heremon, we meet with but little that is remarkable till we arrive at the reign of the idolater Tighernmas, who, while offering sacrifice, at a ♦There are still extant three poems attributed to this bard, one of them said to have been written by him while he was coasting on the shores of Ireland. This latter po6m the reader will find, together with a brief outline of its meaning, in Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy, vol. ii. notes. " There still remain," says the enthusiastic editor, " after a lapse of nearly three thou- sand years, fragments of these ancient bards (Amergin and Lugad, the son of Ith), some of which will be found included in the following pages, with proofs of their authenticity."— P/e/oce. The following is the account given of the supposed poems of Amergin by the learned editor of the Transactions of the Iberno-Celtic Society.—" These compositions are written in the Bearla Feini, and accompanied with an in- terlined gloss, without which they would be unintelligible to modern Irish scholars. The gloss itself requires much study to understand it perfectly, as the language is obsolete, and must in many places be read from bottom to top." tThis matrimonial compact of the Picts is thus, in a spirit far worse than absurd, misrepresented by O'Halloran :— " They, at the same time, requested wives from Heremon, engaging, in the most solemn manner, that not only then, but for ever after, if they or their successors should have issue by a British, and again by an Irish woman, that the issue of this last only should be capable of succeeding to the inheritance ! and which law continued in force to the days of Venerable Bede, i. e. about 2000 years ! a mark of such striking distinction that it cannot be paralleled in the history of any other nation under the sun !"— Vol. ii. chap. 4. This policy of deducing the royal succession through the female line, not through the male, was always retained by the Picts. DIFFERENT CLASSES OF SOCIETY. 99 great popular convention, to the monstrous idol, Crom-Cruach, was, together with the vast multitude around him, miraculously destroyed. During the reign of this king, gold is said to have been, for 'the first time, worked in Ireland; a mine of that metal having been discovered in the woods to the east of the river Liffey.* In the reign of Achy, who was the immediate successor of Tighernmas, a singular law was enacted, regulating the exact number of colours by which the garments of the different classes of society were to be distinguished.! Plebeians and soldiers were, by this ordinance, to wear but a single colour ; military officers of an inferior rank, two ; commanders of bat- talions, three; the keepers of houses of hospitality]:, four; the nobility and military knights, five ; and the Bards and Ollamhs, who were distinguished for learning, six, being but one colour less than the number worn by the reigning princes themselves. These regulations are curious; not only as showing the high station allotted to learning and talent, among the qualifications for distinction, but as presenting a coincidence rather remark- able with that custom of patriarchal times, which made a gar- ment of many colours the appropriate dress of kings' daughters and princes.^ For a long period, indeed, most of the Eastern nations re- tained both the practice of dividing the people into different castes and professions, and also, as appears from the regulations of Giamschid, king of Persiajj, this custom of distinguishing *"At Fothart," says Simon, "near the river Liffey, in the county of Wicklow, where gold, silver, copper, lead, and iron, have of late years been found out." — Simon on Irish Coins. t A similar fancy for party-coloured dresses existed among the Celts of Gaul ; and Diodorus describes that people as wearing garments flowered with all varieties of colour — "x^^wjxaai -KavroSa-rrois SirjvBiantvovs Lib. 5. The part of their dress which they called braccte, or breeches, was so named from its being plaided ; the word brae signifying in Celtic any thing speckled or party-coloured. The historian Tacitus, in describing Ctecina as dressed in the Gaulish fashion, represents him with breeches, or trowsers, and a plaid mantle :— " Versicolore sago, braccas, tegmen barbarum indutus."— Hint. lib. ii. cap. 20. I An order of men appointed by the state, and endowed with lands, for the purpose of keeping constantly open house, and giving entertainment to all travellers in proportion to their rank. These officers are frequently men- tioned in the Brehon laws; and, among other enactments respecting them, it is specified that each Bruigh shall keep in his house, for the amusement of travellers, Taibhle Fioch-thoille, or chess-boards. § Thus, Jacob made Joseph a coat of many colours, (Gen. xxxvii. 3.) ; and Tamar(2Sam. xiii. 18.) "had a garment of divers colours, for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled." |( Saadi veut aussi, que ce prince ait non seulement divis6 les hommes en plusieurs 6tats et professions, mais qu'il les ait encore distingu6s par des habits et par des coiffures differentes."— J9'.ffflrieZo«. 100 HISTORY OF IRELAND. the different classes by appropriate dresses. From the party- coloured garments worn by the ancient Scots, or Irish, is de- rived the national fashion of the plaid, still prevailing among their descendants in Scotland. Among the numerous kings that, in this dim period of Irish history, pass like shadows before our eyes, the Royal Sage, Ollamh Fodhla*, is almost the only one who, from the strong light of tradition thrown round him, stands out as a being of historical substance and truth. It would serve to illustrate the nature and extent of tlie evidence with which the world is sometimes satisfied, to collect together the various celebrated names which are received as authentic on the strength of tra- dition alonef; and few, perhaps, could claim a more virtual title to this privilege than the great legislator of the ancient Irish, Ollamh Fodhla. In considering the credit, however, that may safely be attached to the accounts of this celebrated per- sonage, we must dismiss wholly from our minds the extravagant antiquity assigned to him| by the seanachies ; and as it has been shown Siat the date of the dynasty itself, of which he was so distinguished an ornament, cannot, at tlie utmost, be removed further back than the second century before our era, whatever his fame may thus lose in antiquity it will be found to gain in probability ; since, as we shall see when I come to treat of the credibility of the Irish annals, the epoch of this monarch, if not within the line to which authentic history ex- tends, is, at least, not very far beyond it. Some of the most useful institutions of Ollamh Fodhla are said to have but a short time survived himself But the act which rendered his reign an important era in legislation was the establishment of the Great Fes, or Triennial Convention at Tara, an approach so far to representative government that, in these periodical assemblies, the leading persons of the three orders of whom the political community consisted, — that is to say, the Monarch, the Druids or Ollamhs, and the Plebeians, — * Pronounced Ollav Folia. This quiescence of many of the consonants in our Irish names, render them far more agreeable to the ear than to the eye. Thus, the formidable name of Tigernach, our great annalist, is sofffined, in pronunciation, into Tierna. t Among the most signal instances, perhaps, is that of the poet Orpheus, who, notwithstanding the decidedly-expressed opinion both of Aristotle and Cicero, that no such poet ever existed, still continiies, and will of course for ever continue, to be regarded as a real historical personage. I In fixing the period of this monarch's reign, chronologers have been widely at variance. While some place it no less than 1316 years before the Christian era, (Thady Roddy, MSS.) Plowden makes it 950 years, (Hist. Re- view, prelim, chap.) O'Flaherty between 700 and 800, and the author of the Dissertations, &.c. about 600. (Sect. 4.) OLLAMH FODHLA. 101 were convened for the purpose of passing such laws and regu- lations as the public good seemed to require.* In the presence of these assemblies, too, the different records of the kingdom were examined ; whatever materials for national history the provincial annals supplied, were here sifted and epitomized, and the result entered in the great national Register called the Psalter of Tara.f In a like manner, according to the historian Ctesias, who drew his own materials professedly from such sources, it was enjoined to the Persians, by an express law, that they should write down the annals of their country in the royal archives. In Ireland this practice of chronicling events continued to be observed to a late period ; and not only at the courts of the different Kings, but even in the family of every inferior chief- tain, a Seanachie, or historian, formed always a regular part of the domestic establishment. To this recording spirit, kept alive, as it was, in Christian times, by a succession of monastic chroniclers, we owe all those various volumes of Psalters and Annals with which the ancient literature of Ireland abounds. The policy which Herodotus tells us was adopted among the Egyptians and the Lacedemonians, of rendering employments and offices hereditary in families, was also, from the time of Ollamh Fodhla down to a very recent period, the established usage in Ireland. This strange custom formed one of the con- trivances of that ancient stationary system, which has been the means of keeping the people of the East and their insti- tutions so little changed through all time. The same principle which led the Egyptians to prohibit their sculptors and painters from innovatmg, even w4th a view to improvement, on the ancient models transmitted to them, prompted them also to ordain, as the Irish did after them, that the descendants of a physician|, for instance, or an artificer, should continue phy- * So represented by those zealous antiquaries O'Flaherty, O'Connor, &c. ; but it will be shown presently that, like the Coloni of the Franks and the Ceorls of the Anglo-Saxons, the plebeians, under the ancient Irish govern- ment, were wholly excluded from political power. t Keating speaks of this authentic Register of the Nation as extant in his time ; but O'Connor says, " there is good reason to believe that no con- siderable part of it escaped the devastations of the Norman war." The fol- lowing is all that the industrious Bishop Nicholson could learn of it: "What is now become of this Royal Monument is hard to tell ; for some of our moderns affirm that they have lately seen it, while others as confidently maintain that it has not appeared for some centuries last Tpast.''— (Historic Library, chap, ii.) Parts of that collection of Irish Records, called the Psalter of Cashel, which was compiled in the tenth century, are supposed to have been transcribed from the ancient Psalter of Tara. X " What is remarkable," says Smith, in his History of Cork, " of this last family of the O'Cullinans, is, that it was never known without one or more 9* 102 HISTORY OF IRELAND. sicians and artificers through all succeeding generations. Not only in their early adoption of this truly Eastern rule, but in the constancy with which, to this day, they have continued, through all changes of time, to adhere to most of their ancient characteristics and usages, the Irish have proved themselves in so far worthy of their oriental descent, and but too faithful inheritors of the same stationary principle. Among the important offices transmitted hereditarily in Ire- land, were those of heralds, practitioners in physic, bards, and musicians. To the professors of these arts Ollamh Fodhla assigned lands for their use ; and also instituted a school of general instruction at Tara, v/hich became afterwards cele- brated under the name of the Mur-ollam-ham, or College of the Learned. A long series of Kings, with scarcely a single event worthy of commemoration, fills up the interval between the reign of this monarch and the building of the palace of Emania by king Kimboath ; an event forming, as we have seen, a prominent era in the Irish annals, and from wliich Tigernach dates the dawn of authentic history. This splendid palace of the princes of Ulster, who were from thenceforward called Kings of Emania, had in its neighbourhood the mansion appropriated to the celebrated Knights of the Red Branch, so triumphantly sung by the bards, and commemorated by the seanachies. If the Bardic historians, in describing the glory and magni- ficence of some of these reigns, have shown no ordinary powers of flourish and exaggeration, it is to be hoped, for the credit of human nature, that they have also far outstripped the truth in their accounts of the discord, treachery, and bloodshed by which almost every one of these brief paroxysms of sove- reignty was disgraced. Out of some tvvo-and-thirty kings who are said to have reigned during the interval between Ollamh physicians in it ; which is remarked by Camden ; insomuch, that when a person is given over, they have a saying in Irish, ' Even an O'Cullinan cannot cure him.' Which profession still continues in the family." (Book i. chap. 1.) An attempt has been made by Rollin, and not unplau8ibly,.to justify this hereditary system.—" By this means (he says) men became more able and expert in employments which they hau always been trained up to from their infancy; and every man adding his own experience to that of his an- cestors, was more capable of rising to perfection in his particular art. Be- sides, this wholesome institution, established anciently through the Egyptian nation, extinguished all irregular ambition," Sec— (Manners and Customs of the Egyptians.) Herodotus, however, in the concluding sentence of the fol- lowing passage, has laid open quietly the inherent absurdity of such a system. " In one instance, the Laceda-monians observe the usage of Egypt : their heralds, musicians, and cooks, follow the profession of their fathers. The son of a herald is, of course, a herald, and the same of the other two profes- sions. If any man has a louder voice than the son of a herald, it signifies nothing."— Lib. 6. HUGOI?Y THE GREAT. 103 Fodhla and the royal builder of Emania, not more than three are represented as having died a natural death, and the great majority of the remainder fell by the hands of their successors.* Though the building of the royal palace of Emania was as- sumed as a technical epoch by the chronologers, the accession of Hugony the Great, as he was called, proved, in a political point of view, an era still more remarkable; ay, by his in- iluence with the assembled States at Tara, he succeeded in annulling the Pentarchy ; and moreover prevailed on the four provincial kings to surrender their right of succession in favour of his family, exacting from them a solemn oath, " by all things visible and invisiblef," not to accept of a supreme monarch from any other line. For the Pentarchal government this monarch substituted a division of the kingdom into twenty-five districts, or dynasties; thus ridding himself of the rivalry of provincial royalty, and at the same time, widening the basis of the monarchical or rather aristocratical power.]: The abju- ration of their ri^ht of succession, which had been extorted from the minor kings, was, as might be expected, revoked on the first opportunity that oilered ; but the system of govern- ment established in place of tlie Pentarchy, was continued down nearly to the commencement of our era, when, under the monarch Achy Fedloch, it was rescinded, and the ancient form restored. After the reign of Ilugony, there succeeds another long sterile interval, extending, according to the Bardic chronology, through a space of more than three hundred years, during which, with the exception of king Labhra's^ return from Gaul at the head of a Gaulish colony — an event to which allusion has already been made — not a single public transaction is re- * The language in which OTinherty and O'Halloran relate some of th»>?c. events is but too well suited to their subject. " Lugad Luagny, the sou of the King Inatmar," says O'Flahorty, "cut JBresal's throat, and got the crown." —(Part iii. chap. 41.) " His reign," says O'Halloran, of another monarch, " lasted but five years, when the sword of his successor cut his way through him to the Irish throne."— (Vol. ii. chap. 7.) t Annal. IV. Magist.— In these annals, Ugony the Great is styled " King of Ilibernia and all Western Europe, as far as the Tuscan sea." t Accorrling to the view taken by some writers of this change, the prin- riple of the Pentarchal government was therein preserved, as Ugony retained the division of the country into five provinces, and in each established a Pentarchy. § In the accounts of the reign of thi.s monarch, as given by Keating and others, are introduced two romantic stories, resembling (one of them) the fabulous adventure of Richard Coeur de Lion and Blondel ; and the other, the story of Midas's ears, and the miraculous revealraent of his secret. In the weak and verbose work of Dr. Warner, {Hist, of Ireland, vol. i. book 3.) the reader will find these stories diluted through some half dozen pages. 104 HISTORY OF IRELAND. corded worthy of notice ; the names of the kings, as usual, succeeding each other at fearfully short intervals; and, in general, their accession and murder being the only events of 3ieir brief career recorded. In the reign of Conary the Great, which coincides 2 * with the commencement of the Christian era, the name dwelt upon, with most interest, by the chroniclers is that of the young hero Cuchullin, whose death, in the full flush and glory of his career, took place, according to these authorities, in the second year of Christ. With the fame of this Irish warrior modern readers have been made acquainted by that splendid tissue of fiction and forgery imposed upon the world as the Poems of Ossian, where, in one of those flights of anachro- nism not infrequent in that w^ork, he is confronted with the bard and hero, Oisin, who did not flourish till the middle of the third century. The exploits of Cuchullin, Conal Cearnach, and other Heroes of the Red Branch, in the memorable Seven Years' War between Connaught and Ulster*, are among those themes on which the old chroniclers and bardic historians most delight to dwell. The circumstance recorded of the young Cuchullin by these annalists, that, when only seven years old, he was invested with knighthood, might have been regarded as one of the marvels of traditionary story, had we not direct evidence, in a fact mentioned by Froissart, that, so late as the time of that chronicler, the practice of knighting boys at the very same age, — more especially those of royal parentage, — was still retained in Ireland.f * This celebrated septoniiial war bears, in Irish history, the name of the Tainbo-Cuailgnc, or the Spoils of the Cattle at Cuailgne; one of the chief causes of its origin having been the seizure of an immense quantity of cattle by the troops of Maud, the Q,ueen of Connauglit, at Cuailgne, in the county of Louth. The march of her army on this expedition, commanded by Fergus, the dethroned King of Ulster — the splendour of the queen herself, seated in an open chariot, with her Asion, or crown of gold, on her head — the names of the Champions of the Red Branch, who bravely encountered her mighty force — all these circumstances arc found detailed in the stories and romances respecting this memorable invasion ; and from some of these fictions, it appears, Macpherson derived the groundwork of his poems of Fingal and Teraora. See Mr. O'Connor's Dissertation on the History of Scotland, where (in speaking of these poems) it is said, " They are evidently founded on the romances and vulgar stories of the Tan-bo-Cualgney war, and those of the Fiana Ereann." t In Froissart'8 curious account of the knighting of the four Irish kings by Richard II., it is related that, on being asked whether they would not gladly receive the order of knighthood from the King of England, " they answered how they were knights already, and that sufficed for them. I asked where they were made knights, and how, and when. They answered, at the age of seven years they were made knights in Ireland, and that a king maketh his son a knight. . . .And then this youngTcnight shall begin to just with small spears against a shield, set on a stake, in the field ; and the more spears that he breaketh, the more he shall be honoured."— Froissart, vol. ii. chap. 202. THE IRISH EARD3. 105 From what has been said of the high station and dignities assigned to their Bards and Antiquaries, it will have been seen that in the political system of the ancient Irish, the Literary or Bardic order, which appears to have been distinct from the Druidical, formed one of the most active and powerful springs. Supported by lands set aside for their use, and surrounded by privileges and immunities which, even in the midst of civil commotion, rendered their persons and property sacred, they were looked up to not only as guardians of their country's his- tory and literature, but as interpreters and dispensers of its laws. Thus endowed and privileged, this class of the commu- nity came at length to possess sucli inordinate power, and, by a natural consequence, so much to abuse it, that a popular re- action against their encroachments was the result, and their whole order was about to be expelled from the kingdom. In this crisis of their fate, the heroic Conquovar, king of Ulster, espoused the cause of the Bards ; and, protesting strongly against the policy of suppressing them altogether, succeeded in effecting such reformations in the constitution of their order, more especially in all that related to their judicial proceedings, as at length restored them to public favour. The better to regulate their decisions for the future, he caused a digest of the ancient laws to be formed, under the auspices of Forchern, and two other distinguished poets ; and the code thus compiled was called by their admiring contemporaries. Breathe Neimidh, or tlie Celestial Judgments."^-' In having poets thus for their lawgivers, the Irish but followed the example of most of the ancient nations ; among whom, in the infancy of legislation, the laws were promulgated always in verse, and often publicly sung ; and even so late as the time of Strabo, the chief magis- trate of the people of Mazaca, in Cappadocia, (who was to them what jurisconsults were to the Romans), bore the title, as we are uiformed by Strabo, of the Law-singer.f We are told, says Sir James Ware, in a MS. Life of Sf.Carthag, Bishop of Lismore, who flourished in tlie seventh century, that " Moelfulius, one of the petty princes of Kerry, intending to knight St. Carthag, while he was a boy, would have put into his hand a sword and target, being the badge or cogni- zance of knighthood."— ^iiiiqidtics, chap. 26. * This translation of the term, which has been adopted by all other au- thorities on the subject, is, I find, questioned by the learned Irish scholar, Mr. O'Reilly, (Trans, of Iberno-Celtic Society), who contends, in opposition to OTlaherty, the O'Connors, O'Halloran, &c., that the meaning of the words Breathe Neimidh is the Laws of the Nobles. This is but one of nu- merous instances that might be adduced, in which important Irish words are shown to be capable of entirely different meanings in the hands of dif- ferent interpreters,— seeming in so far to justify those charges of vague- ness and confusion which Pinkerton, in his hatred of every thing Celtic, brings so constantly against the Irish language. See Enquiry, &c., part iii. chap. 2. t A'lpovjievoi Kai vojmSov, bs tariv avroig £^nynTr]i rav vo^wv, lib. 12. 106 HISTORY OF IRELAND. As we advance into the Christian era, a somewhat clearer and more extended range of horizon opens upon us ; as well from our approaching that period to which the authentic annals of the country extend, as from the light which thenceforward the Roman accounts of Britain throw incidentally on the aifairs of the sister island. It was during the reign of the ^r- ' Irish monarch Crimthan, or, according to others, that of . his successor Fiachad, that Agricola was engaged in Qrt pursuing his victorious enterprises in Britain ; and the few facts relating to Ireland, which his philosophic bio- grapher discloses, are, in themselves, worth whole volumes of vague, ordinary history : as, though but glimpses, the insight which they afford is vivid and searching. The simple state- ment, for instance, of Tacitus, that, at the period when he wrote, the waters and harbours of Ireland were, through the means of commerce and of navigators, better known than those of Britain*, opens such a retrospect at once into her foregone history, as, combined with similar glimpses in other writings of antiquity, renders credible her claims to early civilization, and goes far to justify some of the proud boasts of her annals. In a far other sense, the view opened by the historian into the interior of Ireland's politics at that moment, — the divided and factious state of her people, and the line of policy which, in consequence, the shrewd Agricola, as ruler of Britain, was preparing to pursue towards them, — is all of melancholy im- portance, as showing at how early a period Irishmen had become memorable for disunion among themselves, and how early those who were interested in weakening them, had learned to profit by their dissensions. " One of their petty kings," says Tacitus, " who had been forced to fly by some domestic faction, was received by the Roman genera), and under a show of friendship detained for ulterior purposes."! Tlie plan successfully pursued by Csesar towards Gaul, of playing off her various factions against each other|, and making her own sons the ready instruments of her subjugation, would have been the policy doubtless of Agricola towards Ireland, had these ulterior purposes been put in exe- cution. The object of the Irishman was to induce the Romans to invade his native country ; and by his representations, it appears, Agricola was persuaded into the belief that, with a * Melius aditus portusque per commercia et negociatores cogniti.— v^^ric. cap. 21. t Agricola expulsum seditione doinestica unum ex Regulis gentis exceperat, ac specie amicitise in occasionem retinebat.— .^^ric. cap. 24. I De Bell. Gal. lib. vi. c. 13. THE ROMANS DESIROUS TO SUBDUE IRELAND. 107 single legion, and a small body of auxiliaries, he could conquer and retain possession of Ireland.* It would hardly be possible, perhaps, in the whole compass of history, to find a picture more pregnant with the future, more prospectively characteristic, than this of a recreant Irish prince in the camp of the Romans, proffering his traitorous services to the stranger, and depreciating his country as an excuse for betraying her. It is, indeed, mournful to reflect that, at the end of nearly eighteen centuries, the features of this national portrait should remain so very little altered ; and that with a change only of scene from the tent of the Roman general 'to the closet of the English minister or viceroy, the spectacle of an Irishman playing the game of his country's enemies has been, even in modern history, an occurrence by no means rare. Offence has been taken by some Irish historians at the slur thrown, as they think, on the courage of their countrymen, by the hope attributed to the Roman general of being able to effect an easy conquest of Ireland.f But they ought to have recollected that, more than a thousand years alter, from the same fatal cause, internal disunion, a far smaller force than Agricola thought requisite for his purpose, laid the ancient Milesian monarchy prostrate at the feet of Britain. At the same time, it cannot but be acknowledged that the conduct of the Romans respecting Ireland, by no means warrants the sup- position that they held its conquest to be at all an easy task. The immense advantages that must attend the acquisition of a country placed so immediately in the neighbourhood of their British possessions, were, we know, fully appreciated by them ; nor could any views be more keen and far-sighted than those of Agricola, as unfolded by Tacitus, both as regarded the com- mercial strength that must accrue to Britain^ from the occupa- tion of Ireland, and the strong moral and political influence which the example of this latter country must ever exercise, whether for good or for evil, over the fortunes of her more pow- * Ssepe ex eo aiidivi legione una et modicis auxiliis debellari obtinerique Hiberniam posse.— .^^ric. ib. t The estimate of Strabo respecting Britain is, considering all things, still less flattering. To keep her tributary, he says, at least a legion and a few horse would be requisite. TyXa^i'^ov fitv yap tvoi Tayixaros ■^prj^oi av, Kai In-KiKy Tivog. — Lib. iv. To the courage of the Caledonians, according to this standard, tlie highest testimony seems to have been paid ; as, about the 3'ear 230, while one legion was found sufficient to keep all the rest of Britain in subjection, two were employed upon the borders, against this people.— Dio. 55. I Si quidem Hibernia, medio inter Britanniam atque Hispaniam sita, et Gallico quoque mari opportuna, valentissimam imperii partem magnis invi- cem usibus miscuerit. — Igric. ib. 108 HISTORY OF IRELAND. erful neighbour. He saw that the Britons, says the historian, could never be effectively curbed as long- as there was a peo- ple yet unrnastered in their neighbourhood ; and that, to effect this object, the example of liberty must be removed wholly from their sight.* Could the sagacious Agricola again visit this earth, he would find his views, as to the moral influence of the two countries upon each other, fully confirmed ; — would see that the oppression of tiie weaker people by the stronger has produced a reaction, which may be, in time, salutary to both ; and that already, in all the modes, at least, of strug- gling for liberty, Ireland has become the practised instructor of England. With so deep a sense of the great value of the possession, there can hardly be a more convincing proof that the Romans considered its conquest not easy, than the simple fact that they never attempted it ; and that, though Britain continued to be harassed by the Irish for near three centuries after, not a single Roman soldier ever set foot on their shores. Even when the flight of their eagles had extended as far as the Orcades, Ireland still remained free.f How little the Irish themselves were in fear of invasion at this very period, when, as Tacitus informs us, the coast op- posite to their shores was lined with Roman troops, may be judged from the expedition to Britain undertaken by the mon- arch Crimthan, for the purpose of aiding his ancient allies the Picts, in their heroic stand against the legions of Rome. In tlie course of this visit the Irish monarch is said to have first set the darmg example of those predatory incursions into the Roman province by whicli the Britons continued to be ha- rassed for so long a period after ; and having been eminently successful, as it appears, on this occasion, he returned to his dominions laden with a variety of rich and even luxurious booty, the particulars of which have been triumphantly enu- merated by the annalists. | * " I.lqiie etiam advorsus Brilaniiiam profuturum, t^i Romaiia ubique arma, et velut e conspeclii libertas loMbreUir. ''—^gric. ib. The remarks of La Blctterie, the Frencli translator, upon tliis chapter, prove how pregnant with the seeds of the future it appeared to liini. " Ireland has more harbours and more convenient than any other country in Europe. England has but a small number. Ireland, if f;he could shake oft' the British yoke, and form an independent state, would ruin the British conmierce; but, to her misfortune, England is too well convinced of this truth." t "Hibernia Romanis etiam Orcadum insularum dominium tenentibua inaccessa, raro et tepide ab ullo unquam expugnata et subacta est."— Cw/ie/- rnus Parv. JVebriss. Hist. Rer. ^ngl. X In the long list of articles specified by the Four Masters, as composing this mass of plunder, are mentioned a suit uf armour ornamented with MASSACRE AT MAGH-CRU. 109 On the death of this monarch, whose name enjoys, as we have seen, the peculiar distinction of being associated in the page of history with those of Tacitus and Agricola, a more than usually troubled period succoeded ; during which even that frail and nominal pledge for the security of the public peace, which the descent of the monarchy by inheritance afforded, was set at defiance by a plebeian usurper and his followers, and the whole island made one scene of promiscuous strife and bloodshed. A spirit of revolt among the descendants of the Belgic tribes, whose chief seat was Connaught, but of wliom numbers were also dispersed throughout the other provinces, was the primary cause of all this commotion. The state of Ireland, indeed, at this crisis, shows at how early a period was naturalized on her shores that principle of ex- clusion and proscription which, in after ages, flourished there so rankly. Under the Milesian or Scotic rule, not merely were the great mass of the old Celtic population held in sub- jection by the sword, but also the descendants of the foreign settlers, the remains of the conquered Belgic tribes, were wholly excluded from every share in the administration of public affairs, and treated, in every respect, as a servile and helot class. Confederated among themselves by a common sense of humiliation and wrong, these people, having concert- ed their measures, took the opportunity of a great public as- sembly, held at Magh-Cru, in Connaught, to strike the first blow of their conspiracy. An indiscriminate massacre of all the princes and chiefs collected on that occasion was the signal of general revolt among their confederates throughout the king- dom ; and being joined also by the larger portion of the Celtic population, to whom the dominant caste was Ap. ' odious, they succeeded, with but little opposition, in over- turning the legitimate monarchy, and placing one of their own race and rank, Carbre Cat-can, upon the throne. The five years during which the reign of this usurper lasted are described by the annalists as a period of general gloom and sterility, — " no grain on the stalk, no fruitfulness in the waters, the herds all barren, and but one acorn on the oak." Abandoned wholly to the rule of the rabble, there appeared no hope for the nation of better days ; when unexpectedly, on the death of Carbre, the magnanimity of one individual changed the whole face of affairs. The usurper's son and intended embossed gold and gems, a military cloak with golden fringe, a sword with figures of serpents upon it in chased gold, and a brace of greyhounds, joined together by a silver chain, whose price is estimated, accordingto the primitive usage of barter, at the value of 300 cows. ' Vol. I. 10 110 HISTORY OF IKELA^•D. successor, Moran, instead of accepting the bequeathed crown foi himself, employed all his influence to have it replaced upon a legitimate brow, and succeeded in restoring the royal race in the person of Feredach, son of Crimthan. The post of Chief Judge of the kingdom, bestowed upon him by the monarch, afforded to Moran the means of completing his generous work, and of rendering popular, by a course of unexampled clemen- cy and justice, that restoration of which he had been so dis- interestedly the author. To the fame acquired by this judge for his upright decisions, is owing the fable of the lodham Mo- ran*, or Moran's Collar, which is said to have given warning, by increased pressure around the neck of the wearer, when- ever he was about to pronounce an unjust sentence. The administration of this honest counsellor succeeded in earning for his king the honour of the title of the Just ; and, un- der their joint sway, the whole country enjoyed a lull of tran- quillity as precious as it was rare. This calm, however, was but of brief duration : in the reign of the son of this monarch, Fiach, there broke out a second revolt of the plebeians, or At- tacotof, vvhich raged even more fiercely than the former, and in vvhich the provincial kings took part with the insurgents against the monarchical cause. At the head of this royal insur- 126 ^^^^"^^^ "^"^'^^ Elim, the King of Ulster ; and so successful ' for a time, with the aid of the populace, was his rebel- lion, that the young monarch, Tuathal, found himself compell- ed to fly to North Britain, where, taking refuge at the court of hi3 maternal grandfather, the King of the Picts, he deter- mined to await a turn of fortune in his favour. Nor was it long before a great majority of the people themselves, wearied with their own excesses, and moreover chastened into a little reflection by that usual result of such seasons of outbreak, a famine, began to bethink themselves of the claims of their rightful sovereign, the grandson of their favourite king, Fere- dach the Just. Full of compunction for their ingratitude, * A golden collar or breastplate, supposed by Vallancey to be the lodhain Morain, was lound, some year? since, in the county of Limerick, twelve feet deep, in a turf bog. " It is made of thin plated gold, and chased in a very neat and workmanlike manner; the breast-plate is single, but the hemi- spherical ornaments at the top are lined throughout with another thin plate of pure gold." — Collectan. Hibern., No. 13. The traditional memory of this chain or collar (says O'Flanigan) is so well preserved to this day, that it is a common expression for a person asseve- rating absolute truth to say, " I would swear by Moran's chain for it."— Trans, of Gaelic Society, vol. i. t The Plebeians engaged in this rebellion are, in general, called Attacots, a name corrupted from the compound Irish term Attach tuatha, which signi- fies, according to Dr. O'Connor, the Giant Race, (Prol. i. 74.); but, according to Mr. O'Reillys vercion, 3imply the Plebeian?. CHIKF CAUSE or IINTERNAL COMMUTlOIN. Ill tliey dispatched messengers to solicit his retuni ; in prompt obedience to which summons, the monarch landed at the head of a body of Pictish troops, and marching directly to Tara, was elected sovereign amidst tlie acclamations of his subjects. From thence, taking the field instantly against the rebels, he pursued his course, from victory to victory, throughout the kingdom, till the usurpation was wliolly extinguished, the former relations of society everywhere restored, Vg// and the monarch himself hailed witli general acclama- tion under the title of Tuathal, the Acceptable. This second Plebeian War — to use the term applied to it by Irish historians — having been thus happily terminated, Tuathal convoked, according to custom, the General Assembly of the States at Tara, for the purpose of consulting with them re- specting the general affairs and interests of the kingdom, but more especially with a view to the arrangement of the import- ant question of tlie succession. In a country where kings were so very numerous, and all of them elective, every new demise of royalty was, of course, but a new signal for discord; and Ihe sovereign crown being more than the rest an object of rivalry and ambition, was in proportion the greatest source of strife. Efforts had more than once been made to confine the right of succession to one family, and thereby limit at least the range of the mischief; but the temptation to violate all such restrictions had been ibund stronger than the oath pledged to observe them. The fatal consequence, liowever, of the late interruptions of the old Heremonian line of descent seemed to call imperatively for some protection against the recurrence of such disorders ; and accordingly Tuathal found no difiiculty in inducing the States of the kingdom to proffer their ancient and solemn oath, " by the sun, moon, and- stars," that, as long as Ireland should be encircled by the sea, they would acknow- ledge him alone as their lawful monarch. The same pledges had been given to his predecessors, Heremon and Hugony; and, in all three instances, had been alike violated as soon as the breath had left the royal frame. Under this monarch the county of Meath, which occupied the centre of the island, was enlarged by a grant of land from each of the other provinces ; and, under the name of " The Mensal Lands of the Monarch of Ireland," was appropriated thenceforth as an appanage of the royal domain. To gratify the taste of his people for conventions and festivals, he ordained that, in addition to the Triennial Council of Tara, there should be held annually three assemblies of the kingdom ; one at Tlactha, on the night of Samhin, where fires were lighted and 112 HISTORY OF IRELAND. sacrifices offered to that divinity ; another, on the day of the Baal-fire, at the sacred hill of Usneach ; and a third, on the plains of Taltin, in the Ultonian district*, where those annual sports, introduced in the time of the Damnonian kings, were revived. A far less creditable sample of his policy was the enormous mulct imposed by him on the province of Leinster, in revenge for the conduct of its ruler, Achy ; thus dooming an unoffend- ing people and their posterity to atone for the crimes of one worthless prince,, This oppressive fine, known by the name of the Boarian or Boromeaii tribute, was exacted every second year, and continued to be the cause of much confiision and blood- shed till the year 693 ; when, in the reign of King Finnacta, through the intercession of St. Moling, it was remitted. The offence by which Achy, king of Leinster, drew down on that province so many centuries of taxation, though expand- ed by Keating and Warner into a romance of some pages, may thus, in a few brief sentences, be narrated. Having espoused one of the daughters of the monarch Fuathal, and carried her home to his own kingdom, the Leinster prince, in little more than a year after their union, made his appearance again at Tara ; and informing the monarch, with every demonstration of sorrow, that his young queen was dead, obtained permission to pay his addresses to her sister, and succeeded in making her also his bride. On arriving with her royal husband in his own province, the young princess found his queen still living ; so great was her surprise and shame at this discovery, that she but for a few minutes, we are told, survived the shock. The deceived queen also, who, in her ignorance of the real circum- stances, had flown with delight to receive her sister, as a visiter, on being informed of the sad truth of the story, took it no less deeply to heart; and, wounded alike by the perfidy of her lord and the melancholy fate of his young victim, pined away and died. For this base act, which ought to have been avenged only upon the unmanly offender, not merely were his subjects, but all their posterity for more than five hundred years, compelled to pay every second year to the reigning mo- narch that memorable tributef, which, contested as it was in * Tenia apud Talten, in Ultoniae portione.— iJcr. Hib. Script. Prol. ii. 79. t According to the old history, cited by, Keating, called the Fine of Lein- ster, this tribute, which was paid through the reigijs of forty kings, consisted of 3000 cows, as many hogs and sheep, 3000 copper caldrons, as many ounces of silver, and the same number of mantles. The number of each kind of cattle demanded is stated variously by different authorities; some making it so few as 300 (MacCurtin's Brief Discourse), and others as high as 15,000.— MS. quoted by Dr. O'Connor. CRIMINAL JUEI3PEUDENCE. 113 most instances, superadded to the numerous occasions of col- lision for ever arising, throughout the country, an almost regu- larly recurring crisis of confusion and bloodshed. During the reign of Tuatlial, there were appointed courts of municipal jurisdiction for the better regulation of the con- cerns of tradesmen and artificers ; an institution which, could we place reliance on the details relating to it, would imply rather an advanced state of interior traffic and merchandise. One fact which appears pretty certain from these accounts is, that previously to the system now introduced, none of the Milesian or dominant caste had condescended to occupy them- selves in trade ; — all mechanical employments and handicrafts being left to the descendants of the old conquered tribes ; while for the issue of the minor branches of the Milesians were re- served the appointments in the militia of Erin, and the old hereditary offices of antiquaries, bards, physicians, and judges. Whatever, in other respects, may have been the civilization of the Irish before the reign of king Feidlim (a. d. 164), their notions of criminal jurisprudence were as yet but a. d. rude and barbarous ; since we learn, that the old law of 161. retaliation was then for the first tune exchanged for the more lenient as well as less demoralizing mode of punishment by a mulct or Eric. Some writers, it is true, have asserted* that the very reverse of what has been just stated was the fact ; and that Feidlim, finding the Law of Compensation al- ready established, introduced the Lex Talionis in its stead. But this assuredly would have been to retrograde rather than to advance in civilization ; — one of the first steps towards civility, in the infancy of all nations, having been the substitu- tion, in criminal justice, of fines proportionate to the offencesf, * See Warner (History of Ireland, vol. i. book 4.), whose confused notions respecting this law are adopted, and rendered still " worse confounded," by the author of the Dissertations on the Ilist. of Ireland, sect. 11. t The following is Spenser's account of the Law of the Eric, as existing among the Irish. Having remarked that, in the Brehon Law, there were " many things repugning both to God's law and man's," he adds, " as for ex- ample, in the case of murder, the Brehon, that is, their Judge, will compound between the murderer and the friends of the party murdered, which prose- cute the action, that the malefactor shall give unto them, or to the child or wife of him that is slain, a recompense which they call an Eriach ; by which wild law of theirs many murders amongst them are made up and smothered." —View of the State of Ireland. Both by Spenser and Sir^ John Davis this custom of compounding the crime of homicide by a fine is spoken of as peculiar to the Irish ; and the latter writer even grounds upon it a most heavy charge against that people ; either forgetting that this mode of composition for manslaughter formed a part of the Anglo-Saxon code, or else wilfully suppressing that fact for the purpos«; of aggravating his list of charges against the old Brehon law. As thorf u ill occur other opportunities for considering this question, T shall Ix-ic onlv if lO''- 114 HISTORY OF IRELAND. for the savage law of retaliation and the right of private re- venge. Should even this improved stage of jurisprudence, under which murders of the darkest kind might be compounded for, appear sufficiently barbarous, it should be recollected that neither the Greeks* at the time of the Trojan war, nor the English under their great ruler Alfred, had yet advanced a step farther. To Feidlim the Legislator succeeded, after a short period, Iiis son Con of the Hundred Battles; a prince whose long reign was devoted, as his distinctive title imports, to a series of conflicts which seem to have been as various in their success, as they were murderous and devastating in their consequences. From the family of this hero descended that race of chieftains who, under the title of the Dalriadic kings, supplied Albany, the modern Scotland, with her first Scotish rulers ; Car- oko' bry Riada, — the son of Conary the Second by the daughter of the monarch Con, — having been the chief who, about the middle of the third century, establislied that Irish settlement in Argyleshiref, which, taking the name of its princely founder, grew up, in the course of time, into the kingdom of Dalriada ; and finally, on the destruction of the Picts by Kenetli Mac-Alpine, became the kingdom of all Scot- land. The incursions of the Irish into those northern parts of Britain had commenced at a very remote period ; and in the reigns of Olmucad, Tigernhmas, Reatch, and other monarchs, such ex- peditions to the coast of Albany are recorded to have taken place.| Without depending, however, solely on Irish authori- ties, the language of the Roman panegyrist, Eumenius, in ex- tolling the victory gained in Britain by Constantius Chlorus, would fully suffice to prove that, previously to the coming of CsBsar, the neighbourhood of Ireland had been found trouble- mark that, however it may have been customary among the ancient Pagan Irish to punish homicide by a mulct, or Eric, alone, there are proofs that, in later times, and before the coming of the English, not only was wilful mur- der, but also the crimes of rape and robbery, made legally punishable by death.— See Dissertations on the Laws of the ancient Irish, Collectan. vol. i.— O'Reilly, on the Brehon Laws, sect. B.—Ledwich, Antiquities.— Hume, vol. i. Appendix. * Iliad, 1. ix. V. 630., where, by Homer, the blood-fine is called a penalty or mulct, and the relatives of the murdered person are represented as satisfied with the imposition. t In these Scoto-Irish chiefs of Argyleshire, says Sir Walter Scott, histo- rians " must trace the original roots of the royal line."— History of Scotland, vol. i. chap. 2. X These early incursions are thus acknowledged by Buchanan :— " Nee semel Scotorum ex Hibernia transitum in Albium factum nostri aunales referunt."- Hist. Scot, 1. 2. ' COLONY OF IRISH IN NORTH BRITAIN. 116 some to the Britons, and that they had been " accustomed" — for such is the phrase used by the orator — to invasions from that quarter.* But the first permanent settlement of the Irish in North Britain was the small colony, just mentioned, under Carbry Riada ; which, fixing its abode in a part of those re- gions inhabited previously only by the Picts, or Caledonians, acquired, as Bede tells us, partly by friendship and partly by the sword, a settled home in the countryf ; while their founder, already possessing, in the north of Ireland, a seigniorial terri- tory named, after himself, Dalriada|, transmitted the same name to the infant kingdom he was thus the means of estab- lishing in Albany. 5 * " Adlmc natio (Britannica') etiam tunc rudis et solis Britanni Pictis modo et Hibernis adsueti hostibus, adhuc seminudi, facile Romanis armis signisque cesserunt." — Panegyric. Vet. f'Procedente autem tempore Britannia post Britones et Pictos, tertiam Scotorum nationem in Pictorum parte recepit, qui, duce Reuda, de Hibernia egressi, vel ainicitia vel ferro, sibimet inter eos sedes quaa hactenus ha- bent vindicarunt, a quo videlicet duce usque hodie Dalreudini vocantur."— L. i. c. 1. I This territory, wliicli comprehended the north, north-west, and part of the south of the county of Antrim, is sometimes confounded with Dalaradia, which, as described by Harris, comprehended the south-east parts of the same county, and the greatest part, if not all, of the county of Down. § For the truth of this important and now undoubted historical fact, we need but refer to the admissions of Scotch writers themselves. After men- tioning the notice, by Ammianus, of Scots in Britain, a. d. 360, the judicious Innes adds, " This may very well agree with the placing the coming in of Eocha Riada (the same as Bede's Reuda), the first leader of the colony of the Scots into Britain, about the beginning of the third age. It is like he brought over at first but a small number, not to give jealousy to the ancient inhab- itants of these parts, the Caledonians ; but in the space of one hundred, or about one hundred and fifty years, that passed betwixt the time of their first coming in, and their being rnentioned by Ammian, a. d. 360, they might have so increased both within themselves, and by accession of new auxiliaries from Ireland, that the Caledonians or Picts, finding them serviceable in their wars against the Romans and provincial Britons, were easily disposed to enlarge their possessions." — Crit. Essay, vol. ii. Dissert, ii. chap. 2. Thus Pinkerton, also, whose observations prove him to have been tho- roughly well informed upon the subject :— " Concerning the origin of the Dalreudini of Ireland, all the Irish writers, Keating, Usher, O'Flaherty, &c. &c. are concordant, and say tlie name sprung from Carbry Riada. Beda, a superior authority to all the Irish annalists put together, informs us that this very Riada led also the first colony of Scots to North Britain. So that the point stands clear, independently of the lights which Kennedy and O'Connor throw upon it."— Enquiry, part iv. chap. 2. Chalmers, also, con- curs in the same view. " The new settlers," he adds, " continued, to the age of Bede, to be commonly called from their original district (in Ireland) the Dalreudini, though they will be herein denominated the Scoto-Irish."— CaZe- donia, vol. i. book ii. chap. 6. But the most ancient testimony of the Scots of North Britain to the de- scent of their kings from the royal Irish race of Conary, is to be found in a Gaelic Duan, or Poem, written by the court bard of Malcolm III. (about a. d. 1057), which has been pronounced the most ancient monument of Dalriadic history remaining. For this very curious genealogical poem, see Ogyg. Vind. chap. X. Rer. Hibern. Script, prol. i. Pinkerton's Enquiry, part iv. chap. 5. 116 HISTORY OF IRELAND. As at this period, and for a long course of centuries after, the name of Scoti, or Scots, was applied exclusively to the Irish, 1 shall, to avoid confusion in speaking of the country now known as Scotland, call it either North Britain, or else by the name which it bore in those early days, Alba, or Al- bany. The most tedious, as well as most sanguinary of the many wars in which the monarch of the Hundred Battles was en- gaged, was that maintained by him against the heroic Mogh- Nuad, king of the province of Leinster, during which the lat- ter carried away the palm of victory in no less than ten suc- cessive pitched battles. In consequence of these numerous defeats, to so low an ebb was the power of the monarch reduced, that his antagonist became at length possessor of one half of the kingdom. A new division of the country accordingly took place*, which continued, nominally at least, to be recognized to a late period, assigning the northern part, under the name of Leath-Cuinn, or Con's half, to the monarch ; while the southern, under the designation of Leath-Mogh, or Mogh's half, fell to the jurisdiction of the crown of Munster. The most accomplished of all the Milesian princes, okj' whether as legislator, soldier, or scholar, was, according ' to the general report of all his historians, the monarch Cormac Ulfadha, wlio flourished about the middle of the third century, and was the only one of the few sensible princes whom the line of Milesius produced that was able to inspire enough of respect for his institutions to secure their existence beyond his own life-time. To his munificence and love of learning the country was indebted, it is said, for the foundation of three Academies at Tara : in the first of which the science of war was taught ; in the second, historical literature ; while the third academy was devoted to the cultivation of jurispru- dence. It was a remarkable tribute to the powerful influences of literature (if the learning of the Fileas and Seanachies may be dignified with that name), that the various schemes of state reform brought forward by these legislators all commenced with the reformation of the Literary Order. Among the rest, the monarch Cormac, who was himself a distinguished ornament of that class, applied his earliest care to the correcting of those abuses which had, in the course of time, deteriorated its spirit. Under his auspices, too, a general revision of the annals of the kingdom was entered upon ; and the national records which, * According to O'Flaherty, this division of the kingdom continued in re- ality but a year ;— " in reputation, however," says Harris, •' it subsists among the Irish to this day." CORMAC ULFADHA. 117 since the days of the illustrious Ollamh, had been kept regu- larly, it is said, in the Psalter of Tara, received such correc- tions and improvements as the growth of knowledge since that remote period must have suggested. It is even alleged that, in the course of this reign, was introduced that mode of ascer- tauiing the dates of regal successions, called Synchronism, which consists in collating the times of the respective reigns with those of contemporary Princes m other countries. This form of chronology was adopted also by an Irish historian of the eleventh century, named Flann, whose annals, formed upon this principle, are said to be still extant in the valuable library at Stowe. It is, however, not easy to conceive, that so gene- ral a knowledge of foreign history as this task of synchroni- zing seems necessarily to imply, and which, even in writers so late as Tigernach and Flann*, is sufficiently remarkable, could have been found among a people so entirely secluded from most of the other European nations, as were the Irish in the time of their king Cormac. The abdication of the supreme power by this monarch, in the full vigour of his age and faculties, was the consequence, it appears, of an ancient law or custom of the country, which forbade that any one who was affected with a personal blemish should hold possession of the throne ; and as, in resistmg a rebellious attack on his palace, he incurred the loss of an eyef, this accomplished monarch was thereby disqualified from longer retaining the sovereignty. In the law thus enforced may be observed another instance, rather remarkable, of coincidence with the rules and customs of the East. In a like manner, we * Flannus Junior, Flann Mainistreach cognominatus, cujus Synchrona pariter extant in vetusto codice membraneo ejusdem Bibliothecse, No. i. quique obiit anno 1056, plura itidem subministravit, quibus traditio historica auctoritate cosetanea fulcitur.— iicr. Hibern. Script. Ep. JVwnc. A list of no less than fourteen poems attributed to this synchronist, who is known also by the title of Flann of Bute, is given, in Mr. O'Reilly's chro- nological list of Irish writers, as being still preserved in the Book of Leacan, in the O'Cleary's Book of Invasions, and other such collections. t We find this accident otherwise accounted for, in a curious narrative, containing some picturesque circumstances, which General Vallancey gives as a translation from an old Irish law book. Ceallach Mac-Cormac, a kins- man, as it appears, of the monarch, having carried away, by force, the niece of another Irish chieftain, the latter, determined to take revenge for the insult, hurried to Tara, the royal residence, where the offender was then a guest. " He made directly towards Tara," says the MS., " where he arrived after sunset. Now, there was a law prohibiting any person from coming armed into Tara after sunset, so he went unarmed, and, taking down Cor- macs spear from the place where it hung in the hall of Tara, he killed Ceallach Mac-Cormac on the spot, and drawing back the spear with great force, the ferrol struck out Cormac's eye, and wounded the Reactaire, or Judge of Tara, in the back, of which he die±— Fragment of the Brehon Laws. 118 HISTORY OF IRELAND. read in the Persian history, that the soabf the monarch Kobad, having by a singular accident lost the use of an eye, was in consequence precluded, by an old law of the country, from all right of succession to the throne. The nature of the religious opinions held by this monarch have been made a subject of some discussion ; and the reverend librarian of Stowe has thought it no waste of his learned leisure to devote a distinct chapter to the consideration of " the Religion of king Cormac." By some writers it is alleged, that he was converted to Christianity seven years before his death ; being, it is added, the third person in Ireland who professed that faith before the coming of St. Patrick. That this prince was enlightened enough to reject the superstitions of the Druids, and that, in consequence of his free thinking on such subjects, he had that powerful body opjxjsed to him throughout the whole of his reign, there appears little reason to doubt ; but whether he substituted any purer form of faith for that which he had repudiated, is a jjoint not so easily ascertained. A circumstance recorded of him, however, shows how vigor- ously he could repress intolerance and cruelty, even when di- rected against a body of religionists to whom he was himself opposed. Among the ancient institutions of Tara was a 6ort of College of Sacred Virgins, whose vocation it appears to have been, like the Dryads or fortune-tellers among the Gauls, to divine the future for the indulgence of the superstitious or the credulous. In one of those incursions, or forays, of which the territory of the monarch was so ollen the object, Uie place where these holy Druidesses resided*, and which bore the name of " The Retreat until Death," was attacked by the troops of the king of Leinster, and the whole of its sacred inmates, to- gether with their handmaids, most inhumanly massacred.f This brutal sacrilege the monarch punished by putting twelve of the Lagenian chieftains most concerned in it to death, and exacting rigorously the Boarian tribute from the province to which they belonged. In the course of this reign considerable additions are said to have been made to that body of laws, or legal axioms, which * " Dryades erant Gallicana; mulieres fatidicsE."— -Sa/mas. in Lamprid. *' Dicebat quodem tempore Aurelianum Gallicanas consuluisse Dryadas." — Vopisc. in j9urel. We have Toland's authority for there having been Druid- esses in Ireland ; and Gealcossa's Mount, as he tells us, situated in Inisowen, in the county of Donegal, was so called from a female Druid of that name. *' Her name," he adds, " is of the Homerical strain, signifying The White- legged. On this hill is her grave, and hard by is her temple, being a sort of diminutive Stonehenge, which many of the old Irish dare not, even at this day, any way profane."— Ze«eri' to Lord Molcsworth. t Annal. IV. Magist. ad ann. 241. FIN MAC-CUMHAL, OR FINGAL. 119 had been, from time to time, compiled, under the name of Ce- lestial Judgments ; and, among other contributors to this great legislative work, is mentioned Finn Mac-Cumhal — or, as known to modern ears, Fingal — the son-in-law to the monarch Cormac, and general of the famed Fianna Eirinn, or ancient Irish militia. It has been the fate of this popular Irish hero, after a long course of traditional renown in his own country, where his name still lives, not only in legends and songs, but in the yet more indelible record of scenery connected with his memory*, to have been, at once, transferred by adoption to another coun- try, and start, under a new but false shape, in a fresh career of fame. Besides being himself an illustrious warrior and bard, this chief transmitted also to his descendants, Oisin and Osgar, the gifts of heroism and song ; and died, by the lance, as we are told, of an assassin, in the year 273, In the humble abode v/here king Cormac passed his latter daysj-— a thatched cabin, as it is said, at Aicill, or Kellsf,— he produced those works which entitle his name to a place in the list of Royal Authors. '^The Advice to a King," which he wrote for the instruction of his son, Carbre, on resigning to him the throne, is said to have been extant so late as the seventeenth century| ; as well as a poem likewise attributed * " I must not omit that, in the centre of this county (the county of Done- gal), the cloud-capt mountain_of Alt Os?oin presides, and around him is the whole scenery of Ossian and i^ingal, which has been so beautifully described by Mr, Macpherson, and to the northward of Lough Dearg are the mountains, caverns, and lakes of Finn, or tinga.\ ."—Collect an. de Reb. Hibem, No, xii. A writer in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy (vol, xv,), men- tions a great rock in the county of Meath, under shelter of which Finn and his faithful wolf-dog, Brann, once rested from the chase ; and it is added that on the top of the hill of Shanthamon, in the county of Cavan, may be seen his " Fingers," in the shape of five enormous stones, each about five feet high, and of four tons weight. A similar tribute has been paid to our Irish heroes by that country of poesy and song which has adopted them as her own. " All over the Highlands," says Sir John Sinclair (Dissert, on the Authen- ticity, &c.), the names of Ossian, Fingal, Comhal, Trenmor, Cuchuliin, are still familiar, and held in the greatest respect. Straths or valleys, mountains, rocks, rivers, are named after them. There are a hundred places in the High- lands and Isles which derive their name from the Feinne, and from circum- stances connected with their history." t In his first version, from an Irish MS., of the details of the accident by which Cormac lost his eye. General Vallancey printed and published the fol- lowing sentence ; " But the famous Aicill performed a cure for his eye." Finding subsequently, however, that Aicill was not a physician, i)ut a small town in the county of Meath, he thus corrected the passage ; " Cormac was sent to Aicill to be cured." This mistake of the great Irish scholar has been made the subject of some dull fucetiousness in Doctor Campbell's Strictures, Sect, 3. X Bishop Nicholson -has, by an oversight, transferred both this work and the son for whom ii was written, to Cormac Mac-Cuillenan, the Royal Com- piler of the Psalter of Cashel, who died in the beginning of the tenth century. The confusion is carried still further by representing the latter also as having died in " a thatched house at Anachiul, inCeananus near Tara."— Jr^s^ Lib. Appendix. 120 HISTORY OF IRELATiD. I to him, on the virtues of the number Three, — ^somewhat re^ sembling, most probably, the Gryphus of the poet Ausonius or the same mysterious subject. Among the remarkable events that passed during the reign of this monarch, it is worthy of mention that, after having de- feated the Ultonians, in a great battle at Granard, he banished numbers of the people of that province to the Isle of Man and the Hebrides. That the island of Eubonia, as Man was then called, belonged in early times tolreland, appears from Ptolemy^ by whom it is marked as a dependency of that country ; and^ in a work attributed to the cosmographer iEthicus, we are told^ " The Isle of Man, as well as Hibernia, is inhabited by tribee of the Scots."* In the time of St. Patrick it was still an Irish island, and the favourite resort of such holy persons as wished to devote themselves to a life of seclusion and prayer. It was in the reign of Carbre, the son and successor of Cor- mac, that the famous Fianna Eirinn, or Militia of Erin, whose achievements formed so often the theme of our ancient ro- mances and songs, was, in consequence of the dissensions within its own body, as well as of the formidable degree of power which it had attained, put down summarily by force- This national army had been for some time divided into two rival septs, the Clanna Boisgne, commanded by Oisin, the son of Finn, and the Clanna Morna, which was at this time pro- tected by the king of Munster ; and the rights claimed by the former sept, to take precedence of all other military tribes, had been long a source of violent feuds between their respective chieft;ains. A celebrated contention of this nature between Goll and Finn Mac-Cumhal, near the palace of the latter at Almhainf , had risen to such a height that it could only be ap- peased, we are told, by the intervention of the bards, who, shaking the Chain of Silence between the chiefs, succeeded in calming their strife.f To such a pitch, however, had the * " Hibernia a Scotorum gentibus colitur.— Menavia insula aeque ac Hi- bernia a Scotorum gentibus habitatur." — Cosmog. t " Situated in Leinster, on the summit of Allen, or rather, as the natives of that country pronounce it, Allowin. The village and bog of Allen have thence derived their name. There are still the remains of some trenches on the top of the hill where Finn Mac Cumhal and his Fians were wont to celebrate their feasts."— £)r. Young, Trans. Irish Acad. X " The Book of Howth affirms that, in the battle between the Fenii and Carbre, the Fenii were all destroyed, Oisin excepted ; and that he lived till the time of St. Patrick, to whom he related the exploits of the Fenii."— iJc/ics of Irish Poetry. See also Walker's Irish Bards. " It would be tedious," adds Miss Brooke, " to relate the various causes assigned by different writers for this battle. Historians in general lay the chief blame upon the Fenii ; and the poets, taking part with their favourite heroes, cast the odium upon Carbre, then monarch of Ireland. The fault, most likely, was mutual." OSSIAX. 121 presumption of the Clanna Boisgne at length arrived, that in the reign of Carbre, having had the audacity to defy the throne itself, they were attacked by the united force of almost all the royal troops of the kingdom (the king of Munster alone taking part with the rebellious Fians), and a battle, memorable for its extent of carnage, ensued, in which Osgar, the son of Oisin, or Ossian, was slain by the monarch's own hand, and scarcely a man of the Clanna Boisgne escaped the slaughter of that day. The victorious monarch, too, surviving but a short time his dreadful combat with Osgar, was himself numbered among the slain. The fame of this fatal battle of Gabhra, and the brave war- riors who fell in it, continued long to be a favourite theme of the Irish bards and romancers ; and upon no other foundation than the old songs respecting the heroes of this combat, mixed up with others relating to chieftains of a still more ancient date, has been raised that splendid fabric of imposture which, under the assumed name of Ossian, has for so long a period dazzled and deceived the world* ; being not more remarkable for the skiJl and fancy displayed in its execution than for the intrepidity with which its author presumed on the general ignorance and credulity of his readers. The close connexion of this work of Macpherson with the History of Ireland, as well as of North Britain, at this period, and the false views which it is meant to convey of the early relations between the two countries, demand for it a degree of notice in these pages to which, as a mere work of fiction, how- ever brilliant, it could not have any claim. Such notice, too, appears the more called for, from the circumstance of this fa- brication forming but one of a long series of attempts, on the part of Scottish writers, to confound and even reverse the his- torical affinities between the two countries, for the purpose of claiming, as the property of Scotland, not only those high heroic names and romantic traditions which belong to the twi- light period of Irish history we are now considering, but also the most distinguished of those numerous saints and scholars, who are known, at a later and more authentic period, to have illustrated our annals. This notable scheme, to which the community of the name of Scotia between the two countries afforded peculiar facilities, commenced so early as the thir- teenth century, when, on the claim advanced by Edward I. to * " There are at least three Poems, of considerable antiquity, in Irish, written on the battle of Gabhra, upon which Mr. Macpherson founded his poem of 'Temora:"— Essay to investigate the Authenticity, &c., by Edward O'Reilly, Esq. Vol. L 11 122 HISTORY OF IRELAND. a feudal superiority over Scotland, it became an object with the people of that country to assert the independency of the Scotish crown, and when for the first time pretensions were set up by them to a scheme of antiquities of their own, partly borrowed from that of the parent country, but chiefly intended to supersede and eclipse it. Tlie pretensions but faintly sketched out at that crisis, as- sumed, in the hands of succeeding chroniclers, a more decided shape ; till at length, with the aid of the forged authorities brought fonvard by Hector Boece*, an addition of from forty to five-and-forty Scotish kings were at once interpolated in the authentic Irish list of the Dalriadic rulers ; by which means the commencement of the Scotish kingdom in Britain was re- moved from its true historical date, — about the beginning, as we shall see, of the sixth century, — to as far back as three hundred and thirty years before the Incarnation. It is worthy of remark, too, that far more in political objects and designs than in any romantic or vain-glorious ambition, is to be found the source of most of these efforts on the part of the Scotch to construct for themselves this sort of spurious antiquity. We have seen that the first notions of such a scheme arose out of the claims set up by Edward I. to a right of superiority over Scotland ; and as the English monarch had backed his pretensions by reference to a long line of kings, through which he professed to have descended from Brutus, Locrine, Albanact, &o,, tlie Scotch, in their counter-monio- rialsf, deemed it politic to have recourse to a similar parade of antiquity, and brought forward, for the first time, their addi- tional supply of ancient kings, to meet the exigencies of the occasion. In like manner, when, at a later period, their elo- quent Buchanan lent all the attractions of his style to adorn and pass into currency the absurd legends of Hector Boece respecting the forty kings, it was not that he conceived any glory or credit could redound to his country from such forge- riesj, but because the examples he found in these pretended * Innes acquits his countryman Boece of having been himself the author of this forgery.— Ch. ii. art. ii. § 8. t These memorials, which were addressed to the Pope, are to be found in Ilearne's edition of Fordun. " Those productions of the Scots (says Innes), I mean as to their remote antiquities, ought to be considered such as they truly were, as the pleadings of advocates, who commonly make no great difficulty to advance with great assurance all that makes for the advantage of their cause or clients, though they have but probable grounds and some- times bare conjectures to go upon."— Critical Essay. X It is but fair to observe, that by none of these writers was so bold a de- fiance of the voice of history ventured upon as to deny that the Scots of Albany had originally passed over from Ireland. Even Sir George Mackenzie, SPURIOUS LIST OF SCOTISH KIKGS. 123 records of the deposition and punishment of kings by their subjects, fell in with the principles at that time afloat respect- ing the king-deposing power, and afforded precedents for that right of revolt against tyranny which he had himself so stre- nuously and spiritedly advocated.* From this period the boasted antiquities of the British Scots were suffered to slumber undisturbed, till, on the appearance of the work of the Bishop of St. Asaph, entitled an Historical Account of Ancient Church Government in Great Britain and Ireland, when that learned prelate, having occasion to notice the fabricated succession of Scotish kings from an imaginary Fergus L, exposed the falsehood and utter absurdity of the whole fable. This simply historical statement called forth a champion of the forty phantom kings, in the person of Sir George Mackenzie, the King's Advocate for Scotland, who, resenting warmly, as " a degree of leze-majeste," this curtail- ment of the royal line, went so far as to identify the honour and safety of the British monarchy with the credit of the fabu- lous kings of Boece.f It is, indeed, not a little curious to ob- serve, that while political views and objects continued to be the motive of most of this zeal for the antiquities of their country, the ground taken by the Scotish champions was now completely changed ; and whereas Boece, and, far more know- ingly, Buchanan, had supported the forgery of the forty kings for the sake of the weapons which it had furnished them against the sacredness of hereditary monarchy. Sir George Mackenzie, on the contrary, overlooking, or rather, perhaps, not acknowledging this alleged tendency of the Scotish fic- tions, upheld them as so essentially connected with the very foundations of the British monarchy, that to endeavour to bring them into any disrepute was, in his eyes, a species of high treason. who endeavours to set aside the relationship as much as possible, says,— " We acknowledge ourselves to have come last from Ireland ;" while of all those Scotish writers who preceded him iu the same track, John Major, Hector Boece, Leslie, Buchanan, not a single one has thought of denying that the Scots were originally of Irish extraction. See Ogygia Vindicated, chap. 3. * In his work Dc Jure regni apud Scotos. t See his letter to the lord chancellor, wherein Sir George " admires that any of the subjects of Great Britain did not think it a degrees of lese-majesty to injure and shorten the royal line of their kings." In speaking of the Scoto-Irish chiefs of Argyleshire, Sir Walter Scott says, (Hist, of Scotland, vol. i. ch. 2.) "Not to incur the charge of leze-majest6, brought by Sir G. Mackenzie against Dr. Stillingfleet, for abridging the royal pedigree by some links, we will briefly record that, by the best authorities, twenty-eight of these Dalriadic kings or chiefs reigned successively in Argyle- shire." It was, however, not in reference to the Dalriadic kings that Sir George's remark was made, nor was it directed against Stillingfleet, but against Lloyd, the learned Bishop of St. Asaph, 124 HISTOBY OF IRELAND. The masterly hand of Bishop Stillingfleet gave the last blow to that shadowy fabric of which Sir George Mackenzie had proved himself but a feeble defender ; and the pretensions of the Scots to a high line of antiquity, independent of that of their ancestors, the Irish, fell, never again to rise in the same ostensible shape. But there remained another mode of under- mining the Scotic history of Ireland, or rather of confounding it with that of the Scotia derived from her, so as to transfer to the offspring much of the parent's fame ; and of this Macpher- 8on, with much ingenuity, and a degree of hardihood almost without parallel, availed himself Counting upon the obscuri- ty of Irish history at the commencement of the Christian era, he saw that a supposed migi-ation of Caledonians into that country in the first century, would not only open to him a wide and safe field for the fanciful creations he meditated, but would also be the means of appropriating to his own country the romantic fame of those early heroes and bards, those tradi- tional subjects of story and song, which are, after all, more fondly clung to by every ancient people, than even their most authentic and most honourable history. It is true this adoption and appropriation by the British Scots, of the songs and traditions of the Irish, had been carried on for ages before the period when it was so expertly turned to ac- count by Macpherson ; being the natural result of the intimate intercourse so long subsisting between the two countries. The original fragments, indeed, of Erse poetry, which formed the foundation of most of his Epics, were, in fact, but versions of old Irish songs relating to the Fenian heroes*, which, though attributed to the poet Oisin, were the productions of bards of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,- and, finding their way among the highlanders of Britain, from the close connexion between the two countries, came, in the course of time, to be adopted by them, both heroes and songs, as their own.f * For the best account of these Fenian Poems, and of the general nature of their style and subjects, the reader is referred to an able essay on the authen- ticity of Ossian's Poems, by Dr. William Hamilton Drummond, in the 16th volume of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. A MS. collection of the Fenian tales and songs is said to be in the possession of Mr. James Hardiman, the intelligent author of the History of Galway. t Even among the Lowlanders, too, the traditional renown of Finn and his heroes had long made itself known, as the following instance proves: — When Bruce was defeated by MacDougal, Lord of Lorn, he placed himself in tlie rear of his retreating followers, and checked the pursuit. " Behold him," said MacDougal to one of his leaders, " he protects his followers against us, as Gaul, the son of Morni, defended his tribe against the rage of Fingal." — Gluoted from Barbour, in an article of the Edinburgh Review, (attributed, I believe justly, to the pen of Sir Walter Scott,) on the Report of the Highland Society, vol. vi. That the true birth-place, however, of Finn and his heroea MACPHERSON^S OSSIAN. 125 The various adaptations and corruptions of the original ballads by which this process of naturalization was effected, and the chieftains Finn, Oisin, Osgar, Cuchullin, GoU Mac-Mom were ail in the Erse songs converted into Highland heroes, have been pointed out by critics familiar with the dialects of both countries ; and though some of the variations from the original ballads arose, doubtless, from the want of a written standard, there occur others — such as the omissioli frequently of the name of Ireland, and of St. Patrick — which could have arisen from no other cause than a deliberate intention to deceive.* In all such prepense modes of falsification, Macpherson im- proved boldly on his rude originalsf ; though still with so little regard to consistency, as often to justify the suspicion, that his great success was owing fully as much to the willingness of others to be deceived, as to his own talent in deceiving. The conversion of Finn, an Irish chieftain of tlie third century, into a Caledonian " King of Morven," and the chronological blunder of giving him Cuchullin for a contemporary, who had flourished more than two centuries before, are errors, which, gross as they are, might, under cover of the darkness of Irish was sometimes acknowledg;ed even in Scotland, appears from two verses, quoted in the same article, from the old Scotch poet Douglas : " Great Gow MacMorn, and Fin MacCouI, and how They suld be Goddis in Ireland, as men say." Neither were the English ignorant of our claims to these ancient heroes and bards, as may be seen from the following passage quoted by Camden, in speaking of the Irish : — " They think the souls of the deceased are in commu- nion with famous men of those places, of whom they retain many stories and sonnets, as of the giants Fin Mac-Huyle, OShin Mac-Owen ; and they say, through illusion, that they often see them." The origin of the addition of the word Gal to Finn's name is thus satisfac- torily explained ; Oal, the latter part of the compound, signifies a stranger; and being applied by Scotchmen to Fin, the son of Cumhal, it aftbrds a deci- sive proof that they did not consider him as their countryman."— JBssay on Osslan, by the Rev. Dr. Drummond. * Of one of these Erse Poems, a Conversation between Ossian and St. Pa- trick, Dr. Young says:—" The Highland Sgeulaiches have been very busy in corrupting this poem, partly of necessity from the want of a written standard From their vain desire of attributing Fin Mac-Cumhal and his heroes to Scotland, they seem to have intentionally corrupted it in some passages, as may be seen by comparing the Erse copies with each other. Thus, in the verse before us, the word Ireland is omitted." Again Dr. Young remarks : — " The Highland Sgeulaiches have taken the liberty of totally perverting this stanza, and changing it into another, which might make Fin Mac-Cumhal their own countryman." t The late Dr. Young, Bishop of Clonfert, who, in the year 1784, made a tour to the Highlands of Scotland, for the purpose of seeing the original poems from which Macpherson had constructed his Epics, has accused him of alter- ing the dates of his originals, of attributing to them a much higher antiquity than belongs to them, of suppressing the name of St. Patrick, and, in short, of corrupting and falsifying, by every means, even the few scanty fragments of Irish poetry he could produce to sanction his imposture. 11* 126 HISTORY OF IRELAND. history, at that period, have been expected to pass unnoticed. But his representing this Finn, or Fingal, as in the year 208 commanding the Caledonians against Caracalla*, and then bringing him forward again, at the interval of more than a century, to contend with Cathmor in single combat, is one of those daring flights of improbability and absurdity, upon which none but a Writer so conscious of his own powers of imposture could have ventured.f It is true that, in most of those poems, attributed to our bard Oisin, which furnished the grounds, or rather pretext, for the elaborate forgeries of Macpherson, the very same license of anachronism is found to prevail. The son of Finn, in these rude and spurious productions, has not only his life prolonged as far as the fifth century for the convenience of Conversing with St. Patrick, but finds himself engaged, so late as the com- mencement of the twelfth, in single combat with the Norwe- gian king, Magnus. It is to be remembered, however, that these vagaries of chronology occur in detached pieces of poetry, written by different authors, and at diiferent periods ; vvhereas the pretended epics of Ossian are the production professedly of one great and known poet, at a defined period of history ; and yet, in the very face of this assumed character, abound with such monstrous anachronisms, such utter confusion of times, places, persons, and manners as renders the belief, for so long a period, in the authenticity of such a work, one of the most startling marvels in all literary history. To mention but two or three more instances in which this personator of a bard of the third century forestalls the manners and customs of a far later period, we find him bestowing on his Irish heroes, some centuries before the coat of mail v.us in- * See Gibbon's detection of the anachronism of Macpherson respecting Ca- racalla, (vol. i. ch. 6.) where, however, he expresses himself with a degree of deference and timidity well deserving of Hume's rebuke to him on hi> credu- lity. " You are therefore," says his shrewd friend, " over and above indulgent to us in speaking of the matter with hesitation." t The primary and insurmountable argument against even the possibility of their authenticity, is thus well stated by Hume : — " It is, indeed, strange that any man of sense could have imagined it possible that above twenty thousand verses, along with numberless historical facts, could have been pre- served by oral tradition during fifty generations, by the rudest, perhaps, of all the European nations, the most necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled. Where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded." — Letter to Gibbon, in Qihbov's Memoirs of his men Life and Writings. So slow, however, has the delusion been in passing away, that so late as the year 1825, when Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary was published, we find the author of that work boasting of Ossian, as " the great poet of the Gael," and citing him as authority for the early manners and customs of the High- landers. MACPHERSON S OSSIAN. 127 troduced, bright corslets of steel*, and describing castles as existing in Ireland, at a time when the most stately palaces of her kings were as yet constructed but of wood. In still more wanton defiance both of history and common sense, he brings together the expedition of Caracalla at the commence- ment of the third century, that of Carausius at its close, and the invasions of the Danes and Norwegians, in the ninth and tenth centuries, as all of them contemporary events. Not content with the many violations of chronology that have been mentioned, the pretended translator of Ossian takes no less liberties both with geography and topography, trans- porting Moylena, for instance, the scene of two famous battles, from the King's County to Ulster, and transferring even Tea- mor, or Tara, the celebrated residence of the ancient monarchs from its natural site in Meath to the same northern province.f While thus lavishing upon Ulster glories that do not belong to it, he has, on the other hand, robbed it of some peculiarly its own ; and passing in silence over the memorable Emania, the seat of the old Ultonian kings, he has chosen to substitute some castle of Tura, his own invention, in its place. Instead of Craove-Roe, too, the military school of the Red-Branch Knights, near Emania, he has called up some structure, under the exotic name of Muri's Hall, which is no less the baseless fabric of his own fancy than the castle of 'Tura.| It may be thought that animadversions of this nature upon a romance still so popular, belong more properly to the depart- ment of criticism than of history. But a work which Gibbon, in tracing the fortunes of Imperial Rome, has turned aside from his stately march to notice, may well lay claim to some portion of attention from the humble historian of the country to which all the Chiefs so fabulously commemorated by it, in reality belonged. Had the aim of the forgery been confined to the ordinary objects of romance, namely, to delight and in- terest, any such grave notice of its anachronisms and incon- * " The Irish annalists speak of the Danes in the latter end of the eighth century, as being covered with armour; but they never speak of the Irish troops being so equipped. Giraldus Cambrensis describes particularly the arms of the Irish, but says not one word of their wearing armour:''— Essay upon Ossian, by Edward O'Reilly, Esq. t For a more detailed exposure of these, and many other such blunders, see Dissertation on the First Migrations and Final Settlement of the Scots in North Britain, by Mr. O'Connor, of Belanagare. X The fortress of Tura is, indeed, mentioned by Mr. Beauford, who, as an authority, however, is of little more value than Macpherson himself:— " In the neighbourhood of Cromla," says this writer, " stood the rath or for- tress of Tura, called by the Irish writers Alich Neid."— ^ncjenf Topography of Ireland. 128 HISTORY OF IRELAND. eistencies would have been here misplaced. But the imposture of Macpherson was, at the least, as much historical as poetical. His suppression, for it could hardly have been ignorance*, of the true history of the Irish settlement in Argyleshire, so early as the middle of the third century, — a fact fatal to the whole groundwork of his pretended Scottish history, — -could have proceeded only from a deliberate system of deception, having for its object so far to reverse the historical relationship be- tween the two countries, as to make Scotland the sole source of all those materials for poetry which she had in reality de- rived through colonization from Ireland. The weight given to these compositions, as historical evi- dences, by the weak credulity with which they were at first received, hsis now long passed away. But it ought never, in recording the " follies of the wise," to be forgotten that the critical Blair believed implicitly in the genuineness of these rhapsodies; and that by two grave historians, Henry and Whita- ker, they have been actually referred to as authentic historical documents ; the former liaving made use of their authority in illustrating the early poetry of the Britons, while the latter, in his account of the expedition of the emperor Severus into North Britain, makes up for the silence of all the ancient his- torians, as to its details, by some important particulars derived from the authentic page of the Bard of Selma ; informing us that Fingal, who was at that time, as it seems, the Pendragon of Caledonia, negotiated a peace with the Romansf, upon the banks of the river Carron. With the same ludicrous serious- ness, in relating the events of the naval expedition, under Niall Giallach, against the coasts of Britain, he describes the move- ments of the numerous navy of the ancient Irish, the boatmen * Some of liis own countrymen think more charitably of him : — "Above all," says a writer already referred to, " Macpherson was ignorant of the real history of the colony of the Dalriads, or Irish Scots, who possessed themselves of a part of Argyleshire, in the middle of the third century ; an indubitable fact, inconsistent with his whole system." — Edinburgh Review, vol. xvi., Report of the Highland Society. We arc, however, justified in imputing to Macpherson something much worse than ignorance, when, in works profess- edly liistorical and argumentative, we find him falling into the same disin- genuous practices, aiid not hesitating to alter, suppress or falsify, according as it suited liis immediate purpose. Of all this he is proved to have been guilty in liis Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland. " The total omission," says his opponent, " of some expressions that must have disproved the application of the passages, the careful discharge of all hostile words from the quotations, and the oflkious interpolation of friendly in their room — facts that appear evident upon the face of the extracts above — cer- tainly give an unhappy aspect of disingenuousness to the whole, and may seem to discredit the integrity and honour of Mr. Macpherson."— Genuine History of the Britons Asserted, chap. i. t History of Manchester, book i. chap. xii. sect. 2. ALLIANCE OF THE IRISH AND PICTS. 129 singing to the chime of their oars, and the music of the harp, — the shield of the admiral hung upon the mast, " a sufficient mark of itself in the day, and frequently beat as a signal at night," — all upon the joint authority of the poets Claudian and Ossian ! In one point of view, the imposture has not been unservice- able to the cause of historical truth, inasmuch as, by directing public attention to the subject, it has led to a more correct and more generally difRised knowledge of the early relations be- tween Scotland and Ireland, and rendered impossible, it is to be hoped, any recurrence of that confusion between the annals of the two countries, — that mist thrown purposely, in many instances, around their early connexion, — in which alone such antiquarian pretensions and historical fictions as those of Fordun, Hector Boece, Dempster, and lastly, Macpherson himself, could have hoped to escape detection. The spirit of inquiry, too, that was awakened by so long a course of controversy, has proved favourable no less to the literary than to the historical claims of ancient Ireland ; as it was found that, in her songs and romances, which had been adopted by the Scots of Britain, as well as her heroes, lay the groundwork, however scanty, of this modern fabric of fiction ; that, so far from her descendants, the Scots of Albany, having any pretensions to an original literature or distinct school of poesy, there had never existed, among the Highlanders, any books but Irish* ; and while the scholars of Ireland could boast of manuscripts in their own tongue, near a thousand years old, it was not till so late as the year 1778 that even a Grammar of the Erse dialect of the Gaelic was in existence. It has been already mentioned, that between the Irish and the first inhabitants of North Britain there had commenced an intercourse at a very early period. According to all accounts, the ancient Pictish colony that finally fixed themselves in Britain, had, on their way to that country, rested for a time in Ireland, and had been provided from thence, at their own re- quest, with wives. The friendship founded upon this early connexion was kept alive by continued intercourse between the two nations ; and though the footing the Irish obtained in the third century upon the western coast of North Britain, * " It might boldly be averred that the Irish, who have written a host of grammars, did not derive their prosody from the Caledonians, who, till within these thirty years, had never possessed so much as the skeleton of a national grammar."— Davies's Claims of Ossian. Dr. Ferguson, too, in his communi- cation to the Highland Society, admits that there were " no books in the Gaelic language but the manuals of religion ; and these in so awkward and clumsy a spelling, that few could read them.'* 130 HISTORY OF IRELAND. produced a jealousy which sometimes disturbed, and, even at one period, endangered this small colony* the advantage de- rived by both nations from such an alliance kept their fierce and feverish union unbroken. In addition to the pride which Ireland naturally felt in the task of watching over and nursing into vigour that germ of future dominion which she had planted in North Britain, her kings and princes, eternally at war with each other, as naturally looked beyond their own shores for allies; and accordingly, as in the instance of the monarch Tuathal, who owed his throne to tlie aid of Pictish arms, we find the alliance of that people frequently resorted to as a means of turning the scale of internal strife. On the other hand, the hardy highlanders of Caledonia, in the constant war- fare they waged with their southern neighbours, were no less ready to resort to the assistance of a people fully as restless and pugnacious as themselves, and whose manners and habits, from a long course of connexion, were, it is probable, but little ciifTerent from their own. As some defence against the incursions of these two hostile tribes, the Romans had, at different intervals during the second and third centuries, erected those three great walls or ram- parts on the northern frontier of their province, whose remains still continue to occupy the curious research and speculation of the antiquary. But the Iiostility of these highlanders had, at the period of which we are now treating, assumed a still more audacious and formidable character ; and, about the mid- dle of the fourth century, so destructive had become their in- roads, that it required the presence of the son of Constantine, to make head against and repel them. Whatever differences their relative position, as rival neighbours, had given rise to, were entirely merged in their common object of harassing the Britons, whom a native historian describes as trembling with * According to some writers, almost the whole of this Irish colony, reduced to extremity by the constant attacks of the Picts, were compelled, in the middle, it is said, of the fifth century, (about fifty years before the establish- ment of the Scotic kingdom in North Britain,) to abandon their possessions in Argyleshire, and take flight to Ireland, where they found a refuge in the liereditary territory of the Dalriadic princes. Neither in Tigernach, however, iior in the Annals of the Four Masters, does there occur any mention of such an event, which seems to depend wholly ui»on the authority of the Bcotish writers. Major, Boece, Buchanan, &c., whose misrepresentation of most of the other facts connected with the event, renders them but suspicious testi- monies on the subject of the Dalriadic settlement. Mr. O'Connor, however, has adopted the same unauthorized view. " The British Dalriada," he states, " was exercised by frequent hostilities from the Cruthneans, and, at one period, with so good success, that they forced almost the whole colony to take flight into Ireland, under their leader, Eochad Munrevar, who found a secure retreat for his followers in the Irish Dalriada."— X)isserl. on Hist, of Scotland. HUAS COLLA USURPS THE THRONE. 131 the fear of a new visitation, while still fainting from the dire effects of the tempest which had just swept over them. To deliver the province from this scourge, one of the bravest of the Roman generals, Theodosius, was now appointed to the military command of Britain ; and after two active canipaigns, during which he had to contend not only with the Picts and Scots by land, but also with their new allies, the Saxon pirates, by sea, he at length succeeded in delivering Britain from her inveterate invaders. To such daring lengths had some of these incursions into her territory extended, that, on the arrival of the Roman general, he had found the Picts and their allies ad- vanced as far as London and Kent.* In all this warfare the Scots of Ireland were no less active than their brethren of Albany ; and it is, therefore, remarkable that the Roman com- mander, though fitting out a fleet to chastise the Saxons in the Orcades, should yet have left Ireland, whose currachs wafted over such hostile swarms to his shores, still exempt from inva- sion. That his fleet chased, however, some of her vessels into their own northern harbours, may be concluded from a passage of the poem of Claudian, which commemorates this war : — " Noc falso nomine Pictos Edomuit, Scotumque vago mucrono secutus, Fregit Hyperboieas remis audacibusundas." The few following lines from the same poem describe briefly and picturesquely the signal triumph over the three hostile nations which Theodosius had achieved : — " Maduorunt Saxone fuso Orcados, incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thiilo, Scotorum cumulos (lovit glacialis lerne." From this period there occurs nothing very remarkable in the course of Irish affairs till about the beginning of the fourth century, when the violent usurpation of the sovereign throne by Huas Colla, one of three brothers bearing the same name, produced a long series of tumultuous and sanguinary scenes. The battle, in which the rightful monarch, Fiach, lost his crown and his life to the usurper, is distinguished among the countless fields of carnage upon record, by the title of the Battle of Dubcomar ; from the circumstance of the monarch's favourite Druid of that name having been among the number of the slain. This and other such known instances of Druidi- cal warriors, show that justly as Macpherson has, in general, been accused of giving false pictures of Irish manners, his in- * See Ammian. lib. xxvii. c. 8., who describes tbem as penetrating "ad Lundinium vetus oppidum, quod Augustam posteritas appellavit." 132 HISTORY OF IRELAND. troduction of " Fighting Druids" is not to be reckoned among the number.* The name of Landerg, or Bloody Hand, affixed by tradition, as we are told, to the Druid who has lived en- chanted, it is thought, for ages, in one of the mountains of the county of Donegal, proves the sort of warlike reputation that was attached to some of this priesthood ; and we learn from Csesar, that even so solemn a question as the election of a High Priest used, among the Gaulish Druids, to be decided sometimes by an appeal to arms. After a reign of five years, the usurper CoUa was compelled to abdicate the sovereignty by the rightful successor of the late monarch, Muredach Tiry, and the three Collas took flight, attended by 300 followers, to North Britain. f From thence returning in the course of a year, they found means to concili- ate, through the intervention of the Druids, the good-vvill of the monarch Muredach, and were also by his aid enabled to make war on the king of Ulster, and dispossess him of his do- minions. It was in the course of the struggle consequent on this invasion, that the princely palace of Emania. whose con- struction formed one of the great epochs of Irish chronology, was, after a battle, upon which, we are told, six successive suns went down, destroyed by the victorious army, and not a trace of its long-celebrated glories left behind. An invasion of Britain, on a far more extensive and 396-7 ^o'^'^^^^^l® scale t]ian had yet been attempted from * Ireland, took place towards the close of the fourth cen- tury, under the auspices of Nial of the Nine Hostages, one of the most gallant of all the princes of the Milesian race. Ob- serving that the Romans, after breaking up their lines of en- campment along the coast opposite to Ireland, had retired to the eastern shore and the northern wall, Nial perceived that an apt opportunity was thus oflfered for a descent upon the now unprotected territory. Instantly summoning, therefore, all the forces of the island, and embarking them on board such ships as he could collect, he ranged with his numerous navy along the whole coast of Lancashire, effected a landmg in Wales, from whence he carried off immense plunder, and, though com- * O'Reilly's Essay upon Ossian, where this objection is brought forward. " From the very name of Laniderg," says Toland, " we learn what sort of man the Druid was, who, by the vulvar, is thought to live enchanted in the mountain between Buniranach and Fathen, in the county of Donegal." He adds, that the Druids were many of them warriors. t A poem is extant, written in the twelfth century, by Giolla na Naomh O'Dunn, giving " an account of the chief tribes descended from the three Collas, sons of Carbre Leffeachar, monarch of Ireland, who was killed at the battle of Gabhra, a. d. 296."— T'ran^. of lb. Celt. Society. A manuscript copy of this poem is in the possession of Mr. O'Reilly, the Secretary of tlie Iberuo. Celtic Society. NIAL's descent upon BRITAIN. 133 pelled ultimately to retreat, left marks of depredation and ruin wherever he passed.* It was against the incursions of this adventurous monarch, that some of those successes were achieved by the Romans, which threw such lustre around the military admiiiistration of Stilicho, and inspired the muse of Claudian in his praise. " By h^in," says the poet, speaking in the person of Britannia, " was I protected when the Scot moved all Ireland against me, and the ocean foamed with his hostile oars."f From another of this poet's eulogies, it appears that the fame of that Roman legion which had guarded the frontier of Britain against the invading Scots]:, procured for it the dis- tinction of being one of those summoned to the banner of Stilicho, when the Goths threatened Rome.^ Joined with the Picts and Scots, in these expeditions, were also another warlike Irish tribe, the Attacots ; who, at an ear- lier period of their country's history, had distinguished them- selves by their turbulent bravery ; having been the chief movers of those two rebellions known by the name of the Attacottic Wars. The fierce valour of these wild warriors, who, after their settlement in North Britain, inhabited chiefly the districts close to Adrian's Wall, seems to have attracted the especial attention of the Romans, who, acting upon the policy, which proved so fatal to them in the decline of the empire, of incor- porating with their own legions, and even with the Palatine troops, auxiliaries or deserters from the barbarian camps, suc- ceeded in detaching some of these Attacotti from the Scoto- * " In the days of Stilicho particularly, leaving the country between the Walls to be ravaged by their brethren of Argyle and the Picts, they (the Scots of Ireland) made a descent on the provinces that were inaccessible to them, landed in both of the divisions of Wales, and now, for the first time, possessed themselves of the Island of Man."— Gcnmne Hist, of the Britons. t Totam cum Scotus lernen Movit et infesto spumavit remige Tethys. In' I. Cons. Siilich. lib. i. Thus well translated in the English Camden : — When Scots came thundering from the Irish shores, And th' ocean trembled, struck with hostile oars. I The following remarks are not the less worthy of being cited for their having come from the pen of a writer who was either so ignorant or so pre- judiced as to contend, that the Scots who fought by the side of the Picts against the Romans were not really Irish :— " There can be no greater proof of the Scots never having been conquered, than the very Roman walls themselves, built as fences against their hostilities ; which, while there is a stone of them remaining, will be undeniable monuments of the valour and prowess of that nation."— Corrfon, Itinerarium Scptentrionale, chap. xiv. § Venit et extremis Legio prreteuta Britannia. Quae Scoto dat fraana truci, ferroque notatas Perlegit exanimes Picto moriente figuras. De Bella Getico. Vol. I. 12 134 HISTORY OF IRELAND. Pictish league, and enrolling them in the regular force of tlie empire* The tottering state of the Roman dominion in Gaul, as well as in every other quarter, at this period, encouraged the Hero of the Nine Hostages to extend his enterprises to the coast of Britany ; where, after ravaging all the maritime dis- tricts of the north-west of Gaul, he was at length assassinated, with a poisoned arrow, by one of his own followers, near the Portus Iccius, not far, it is supposed, from the site of the pre- sent Boulogne. It was in the course of this predatory expedi- tion that, in one of their descents on the coast of Armoric Gaul, the soldiers of Nial carried off with them, among other cap- tives, a youth, then in his sixteenth year, whom Providence had destined to be the author of a great religious revolution in their country ; and whom the strangely fated land to which lie was then borne, a stranger and a slave, has now, for fourteen hundred years, commemorated as its great Christian apostle. An accession of territory was, during this reign, added to the Irish possessions in North Britain ; the two sons of Cork, kuig of Munster, having acquired seigniories in the neighbour- hood of the Picts, the one of Levinia, or Lenox ; the other, of Moygergin, in Mar, a county of the present Scotland. To Nial the Great succeeded Dathy, the last of the J'o?' Pagan monarchs of Ireland, and not unworthy to follow, * as a soldier and adventurer, in the path opened to him by his heroic predecessor. Not only, like Nial, did he venture to invade the coasts of Gaul ; but, allured by the prospect of plunder, which the state of the province, then falling fast into dismemberment, held forth, forced his way to the foot of the Alps, and was there killed, it is said, by a flash of lightning, leaving the throne of Ireland to be filled thenceforward by a line of Christian kings. * In the Jfotitia Imperii, the Attacotti are expressly named. " Procedente tempore cum bellicosos et formidandos Romani invenissent, priemiis propo- eitis et sese auxiliariis adscriberent allexerunt, ideoque Attacottos in No- titia Imperii nominates invenimus, curante Honorio, ut ex inimicis amici et vacillanlis Imperii defensores ha berentur. "—iZcr. Hibern. Script., Prol. 1. Ixxi. " The Attacotti make a distinguished figure in the Notitia Imperii, where numerous bodies of them appear in the list of the Roman army. One body was in Ijlyricum, their ensign a kind of mullet ; another at Rome, their badge a circle ; the Attacotti Honoriani were in Italy." — Pinkerton, Enquiry, part iv. chap. 2. THE BARDIC HISTORIANS. 135 CHAPTER VIII. CREDIBILITY OF THE HISTORY OF PAGAN IRELAND. Before entering upon the new epoch of Irish history, which is about to open upon us with the introduction of Christianity, a review of the general features of the period over which we have passed may be found not uninteresting or unuseful. With regard to the first and most material question, the authenticity of those records on which the foregoing brief sketch of Pagan Ireland is founded, it is essential, in the first place, to distin- guish clearly between what are called the Bardic Historians, — certain metrical writers, who flourished from the ninth to the eleventh century, — and those regular chroniclers or annalists of whom a long series was continued down, there is every reason to believe, from very early ages, and whose successive records have been embodied and transmitted to us in the An- nals of Tigernach*, in those of the Four Mastersf , of Inisfal- len, of Ulster|, and many others, § To the metrical historians above mentioned is to be attributed the credit, if not of originally inventing, at least of amplifying and embellishing, that tale of the Milesian colonization which so many grave and respectable writers have, since their time, adopted. In his zeal for the credit of this national legend, the late learned librarian of Stowe has endeavoured to enlist some of the more early Irish poets in its support. || On his own * In the Annals of tiie Four Masters for the year 1088, the death of this annalist is thus recorded:— " Tic^ernach O'Braoin, Comorban, or Successor of Kieran of Clonmacnois and of St. Coman (i. e. Abbot of Clonmacnois and Roscommon), a learned lecturer and historian." t Compiled in the seventeenth century, by Michael O'Clery, with the as- sistance of three other antiquaries, and " chiefly drawn," says Harris, " from the annals of Clonmacnois, Inisfall, and Senat, as well as from other ap- proved and ancient chronicles of Ireland." For a fuller account of the various sources from whence these records were derived, see Mr. Petrie's Remarks on the History and Authenticity of the Autograph Original of the Annals of the Four Masters, now deposited in the library of the R. I. A. Academy. X Published, for the first time, by Dr. O'Connor, from a Bodleian manuscript of the year 1215. § A long list of these various books of Annals may be found in Nichol- son's Historical Library, chap. 2. ; also in the preface to Keating's History, xxi. II For the very slight grounds, or, rather, mere pretence of grounds, upon which Dr. O'Connor lays claim to Fiech and Confealad, Irish poets of the sixth and seventh centuries, as authorities for the Milesian story, see, among other passages, Ep. Nunc, xxxiv., Prol. 2. xv. xxvi. Having once claimed them, thus gratuitously, as favouring lus views of the subject, he continues constantly after to refer to them, as concurrent authorities with those later 136 HISTORY OF IRELAr*D. showing, however, it is manifest that in no Irish writings before those of Maolmura,* who died towards the close of the ninth century, are any traces whatever of the Milesian fable to be found. There appears little doubt, indeed, that to some metrical writers of the ninth century the first rudiments of this wild romance respecting the origin of the Irish people are to be assigned ; that succeeding writers took care to amplify and embellish the original sketch ; and that in the hands of the author or authors of the Psalter of Cashelf , it assumed that full-blown form of fiction and extravagance in which it has ever since flourished. It is worthy of remark, too, that the same British writer, Nennius, who furnished Geoffry of Mon- mouth with his now exploded fables of the descent of the Bri- tons from king Brute and the Trojans, was the first also who put forth the tale of the Scythian ancestors of the Irish, and of their coming, in the fourth age of the world, by the way of Africa and Spain, into Hibernia. Having conversed, as he himself tells us, with the most learned among the Scots|, and been by them, it is evident, informed of their early traditions respecting a colony from Spain, he was tempted to eke out their genealogy for them by extending it as far as Scythia and bardic historians, in whom alone the true origin and substance of the whole story is to be found. The Psalter-na-Rann attributed to the Culdee, iEngus, which is another of the writings appealed to by Dr. O'Connor, on this point, wan, however, uot the work of that pious author (who wrote solely on religious subjects), nor of a date earlier, as is evident, than the tenth century. Sec Lanigan, Ecclesiast. Hist., chap. xx. note 107. ♦This writer, who died in the year 684, was the author of a poem begin- ning, "Let us sing the orijrin of the Gadelians:" in which, deriving the origin of the Milesians from Japhet, son of Noah, he gives an account of the peregrinations of the ancestors of the Irish from the dispersion at Babel to the arrival in Ireland. Contemporary with Maolmura was Flann Mac Lo- nan, of whose compositions there remain, says Mr. O'Reilly, three poems, which " are to be found in the account of the spreading branches of Heber, son of Milesius, in the Leabhar Muimhneach, or Munster Book." jFrom this work, which was compiled, about the beginning of the tenth century, by Corraac Mac Culinan, bishop of Cashel and king of Munster, Keating professes to have drawn a great part of his History of Ireland. " Since most," says Keating, " of the authentic records of Ireland are com- posed in dann, or verse, I shall receive them as the principal testimonies to follow in compiling the following history; for, notwithstanding that some of the chronicles of Ireland differ from these poetical records in some cases, yet the testimony of the annals that were written in verse is not for that reason invalid."— Pre/ace. About the middle of the tenth century flourished Eochaidh O'Floinn, whose poems, relating to the marvels of the first Irish colonies, the battles between the Nemethians and the sea rovers, the de- struction of Conan's Tower, are still preserved in the books of Glendalough, Ballymote, and Leacan, the Dinn Seanchas, Book of Invasions, &c. X " Sic mihi peritissimi Scottorum nuntiaverunt." Nennius wrote about the year 858. FICTITIOUS ROYAL GENEALOGIES. 137 the Red Sea, just as he had provided the Britons with Trojan progenitors, under the command of king Brute, from Greece. To our metrical historians may be assigned also the credit of inventing that specious system of chronology upon which the fabric of their fabled antiquity entirely rests, and which, though well calcukited to effect the object of its inventors, — that of carrying back to remote times the date of the Milesian dynasty, — proves them not to have been over-scrupulous in the means they used for that purpose.* It is, indeed, as I have already, more than once, remarked, far less in the events them- selves, than in the remote date assigned to those events, that much of the delusion attributed in general to Irish history lies. The ambition of a name ancient as the world, and the lax, ac- commodating chronology, which is found ever ready, in the infancy of science, to support such pretensions, has led the Irish, as it has led most other nations, to antedate their own existence and fame.f Together with the primitive mode of numbering ages and ascertaining the dates of public events, by the successions of kings and the generations of men, the ancient Irish possessed also a measure of time in their two great annual festivals of Baal and of Samhin, the recurrence of which at certain fixed periods furnished points, in each year, from whence to calcu- late. How far even History may advance to perfection where no more regular chronology exists, appears in the instance of Thucydides, who was able to enrich the world with his " trea- sure for all time" before any era from whence to date had yet been established in Greece. It was, however, in this very * The extravagant chronology of the metrical catalogues of kings given by Gilla-Coeman, and other later bards, is fully acknowledged by Dr O'Con- nor himself: — " IliEC plane indicant nostras, de Scotorum origine, et primo in Hiberniam ac inde in Britanniani adventu, traditiones metricas historica esse fide auftUltas ; sed dum bardi prodigiosam antiquitatem majoribus ad- scribere conarentur id tantum fingendi licentia efficere ut quas illustrare de- buerant veritates offuscarent, ct dum Hiberniam fabulis nobilitare cupiunt ipsi sibi fidem ita derogant ut postea, cum ad tempora historica descendunt, etsi vera dixerint, nimia severitate redarguantur." — Prol. 2. xlvi. It was by Coeman, notwithstanding, that the author of Ogygia chiefly regulated his chronology ; and the erudite efforts which he makes to recon- cile his system to common sense show how laboriously, sometimes, the learned can go astray. " It is no wonder," says Mr. O'Connor of Balenagare, " that Gilla-Coeman, and many other of our old antiquaries, have fallen into mistakes and anachronisms : to their earliest reports Mr. O'Flaherty gave too much credit, and to their later accounts Sir James Ware gave too little." —Reflections on the Hist, of Ireland, Collectan. No. 10. t " The Danes," saith Dudo S. Q,uintin, " derived themselves from the Danai ; the Prussians from Prusias, king of Bithynia, who brought the Greeks along with them. Only the Scots and Irish had the wit to derive themselves from the Greeks and Egyptians together."— jJntiy. of British Churches. 12* 138 HISTORY OF IRELAND. mode of computing by regal successions that the great source of the false chronology of the Irish antiquaries lay. From the earliest times, the government of that country consisted of a cluster of kingdoms, where, besides the Monarch of the whole island and the four provincial Kings, there was also a number of inferior sovereigns, or Dynasts, who each aftected the regal name and power. Such a state of things it was that both tempted and enabled the genealogists to construct that fabric of fictitious antiquity by which they imposed not only on others, but on themselves. Having such an abundance of royal blood thus placed at their disposal, the means afforded to them of filling up the genaological lines, and thereby extending back the antiquity of the monarchy, were far too tempting to be easily resisted. Accordingly, — as some of those most sangume in the cause of our antiquities have admitted, — not only were kings who had been contemporaries made to succeed each other, but even princes, acknowledged only by their respective factions, were promoted to the" rank of legitimate monarchs, and took their places in the same regular succession.* By no other expedient, indeed, could so marvellous a list of Royalty have been fabricated, as that which bestows upon Ireland, be- fore the time of St. Patrick, no less than a hundred and thirty- six monarchs of Milesian blood ; thereby extending the date of the Milesian or Scotic settlement to so remote a period as more than a thousand years before the birth of Christ. Between the metrical historians, or rather romancers, of the middle ages, and those regular annalists who, at the same and a later period, but added their own stock of contemporary re- cords to that consecutive series of annals which had been de- livered down, in all probability, for many ages, — between these two sources of evidence, a wide distinction, as I have already inculcated, is to be drawn.f It is true that, in some of the * A nearly similar mode of lengthening out their regal lists was practised among the Egyptians. " Their kings," says Bryant, " had many names and titles ; these titles have been branciied out into persons, and inserted in the lists of real monarchs ; .... by which means the chronology of Egypt has been greatly embarrassed." t Till of late years they have been, by most writers, both English and Irish, confounded. Thus the sensible author of " An Analysis of the Antiquities of Ireland," who, though taking a just and candid view of his subject, had no means of access to the documents which alone could strengthen and illus- trate it, has, in the following passage, mixed up together, as of equal im- portance, our most fabulous compilations and most authentic annals; — " Let us have faithful copies, with just versions, of the hidden records of Keating, of the Psalter of Casliel, of the Book of Lecan, of the Annals of Inisfallen, of those of the Four Masters, and of every other work which may be judged to be of importance. The requisition is simple as it is reasonable. They have long amused us with declamations on the inestimable value of TIGEENACIl's AKNAL3. 139 collections of Annals that have come down to us, the fabulous wonders of the first four ages of the world, from Csesara down to the landing of the sons of Milesius, have been, in all their absurdity, preserved,— as they are, indeed, in most histories of the country down to the present day. It is likewise true, that by most of the annalists the same deceptive scheme of chro- nology has been adopted, by v/hich the lists of the kings pr€= ceding the Christian era are lengthened out so preposterously into past time. But, admitting to the full all such deduc= tions from the authority of these records, more especially as regards their chronology for the times preceding our era, still their pretensions, on the whole, to rank as fair historical evi- dence, can hardly, on any just grounds, be questioned. From the objections that have just been alleged against most of the other Books of Annals, that of Tigernach is al- most wholly free ; as, so far from placing in the van of history the popular fictions of his day, this chronicler has passed them over significantly in silence ; and beginning his Annals with a comparatively late monarch, Kimboath, pronounces the records of the Scots, previously to that period, to have been all uncer- tain.* The feeling of confidence which so honest a commence- ment inspires, is fully justified by the tone of veracity which pervades the whole of his statements ; and, according as he approaches the Cliristian era, and, still more, as he advances into that period, the remarkable consistency of his chronology, his knowledge and accuracy in synchronizing Irish events with those of the Roman History, and the uniformly dry mat- ter of fact which forms the staple of his details, alj bespeak for these records a confidence of no ordinary kind; and render them, corroborated as they are by other Annals of the same grave description, a body of evidence, even as to the earlier parts of Irish history, far more trustworthy and chronological than can be adduced for some of the most accredited transac- tions of that early period of Grecian story, when, as we know, the accounts of great events were kept by memory alone.f these literary treasures ; and surely, after having excited our curiosity, their conduct will be inexcusable, if they do not in tlie end provide for its grati- fication." * Doctor O'Connor, it is right to mention, is of opinion that Tigernach had, like all the other annalists, begun his records from the creation of the world, and that the commencement of his manuscript has been lost. But, besides that the view taken by the annalist as to the uncertainty of all earlier mo- numents, sufficiently accounts for his not ascending any higher, all the dif- ferent manuscripts, it appears, of his Annals agree in not carrying the records farther back than a. c. 305. t " It is strongly implied by his (Pausanias's) expressions, that the written register of the Olympian victors was not so old as Chorcebus, but that the 140 HISTORY OF IEELA2SD. A learned writer, who, by the force of evidence, has been constrained to admit the antiquity of the lists of Irish kings, has yet the inconsistency to deny to this people the use of let- ters before the coming of St. Patrick. It is to be recollected that the regal lists which he thus supposes to have been but orally transmitted, and which, from the commencement of the Christian era, are shown to have been correctly kept, consist of a long succession of princes, in genealogical order, with, moreover, the descent even of the collateral branches in all their difterent ramifications.^'- Such is the nature of the royal lists which, according to tliis sapient supposition, must have been transmitted correctly, from memory to memory, through a lapse of many centuries ; and such the weakness of that sort of scepticism, — not unmixed sometimes with a li^rking spirit of unfairness, — which, while straining at imaginary difficulties on one side of a question, is prepared to swallow the most in- digestible absurdities on the other. And here a consideration on the general subject of Irish antiquities presents itself, which, as it has had great weight in determining my own views of the matter, may, perhaps, not be without some influence on the mmd of ray reader. In the course of this chapter shall be laid before him a view of the state in which Ireland was found in account of the first Olympiads liad hcen kept by iiieuiory alone. Indeed, it appears certain from all memorials of the best authority, that writing was not conunon in Greece so early."— JJfi//o;t/, vol. i. chap. 3. " When we consider tliat this was the first attempt (the Olympionics of Tiniffiiis of Sicily) that we know of, to establisli an era, and that it was in the 129th Olympiad, what arc we to think of the preceding Greek chro- nology ?"—Jfoorf'a' Etirjuirt/ into the Life, S^'C, of Homer. * " In Ireland, the genealogies which are i)resorved, could not have been handed down in such an extensive, and at the same time so correct a manner, without this acquaintance witli letters, as the tables embrace too great a compass to retain them in the memory; and as, without the assistance of these elements of knowledge, there would have been no sufficient inducement to bestow on them such peculiar iillQWiion:''— Webb, Analysis of the Jintiq. of Ireland. Another well-informed writer thus enforces the same view: — '* The Irish genealogical tables, which are still e.\tant, carry intrinsic proofs of their being geimine and authentic, by their chronological accurary and consistency with each other through all the lines collateral, as well as direct ; a consistency not to be accounted for on the supposition of their being fabri- cated in a subsequent age of darkness and ignorance, but easily explained if we admit them to have been drawn from the real source of family records and truth.''— Enquiry concerning the original of the Scots iji Britain, by Bar- nard, Bishop of Killaloe. " Foreigners may imagine that it is granting too much to the Irish to allow them lists of kings more ancient tlian those of any other country in modern Europe; but the singularly compact and remote situation of that island, and its freedom from Roman coiuiuest, and from the concussions of the fall of the Roman empire, may infer this allowance not too much. But all contended for is the list of kings so easily preserved by the repetition of bards at high so- lemnities, and some grand events of history."-- Pi/jAerion, Enquiry into the Hist, of Scotland, part iv. chap, i. ANTiaUITY OF THE IRISH INSTITUTIONS. 141 the fifth century, — of the condition of her people, their forms of polity, institutions, and usages at that period when the Christian faith first visited her shores; and when, by the light which then broke in upon her long seclusion, she became, for the first time, in any degree known to the other nations of Europe. In that very state, political and social, in which her people were then found, with the very same laws, forms of go- vernment, manners and habits, did they remain, without change or innovation, for the space of seven hundred years ; and though, at the end of that long period, brought abjectly under a foreign yoke, yet continued unsubdued in their attachment to the old law of their country, nor would allow it to be super- seded by the code of the conqueror for nearly five hundred years after. It is evident that to hifuse into any order of things so per- vading a principle of stability, must have been the slow work of time alone ; nor could any system of laws and usages have taken so strong a hold of the hearts of a whole people as those of the Irish had evidently obtained at the time of the coming of St. Patrick, without the lapse of many a foregone century to enable them to strike so deeply their roots. In no country, as we shall see, was Cliristianity received with so fervid a v/el- come ; but in none also had she to make such concessions to old established superstitions, or to leave so much of those reli- gious forms and prejudices, which she found already subsisting, unaltered. Nor was it only over the original Irish themselves that these prescriptive laws had thus by long tenure gained an ascendency ; as even those foreign tribes, — for the most part, as we have seen, Teutonic, — who obtained a settlement among them, had been forced, though conquerors, to follow in the cur- rent of long-established customs*; till, as was said of the con- quering colonists of an after day, they grew, at length, to be more Hibernian than the Hibernians themselves. The same ancient forms of religion and of government were still pre- served ; the language of the multitude soon swept away that of the mere caste who ruled them, and their entire exemption from Roman dominion left them safe from even a chance of change.f * The consequences of this " Oriental inflexibility,"— as Niebhur expresses it, in speaking: of the Syrians,— are thus described by Camden :— " The Irish are so wedded to their own customs, that they not "only retain them them- selves, but corrupt the English that come among them." t It has been falsely asserted by some writers, that the Romans visited, and even conquered, Ireland. The old chronicler Wyntown, carries them to that country even so early as the first century ; and Gueudeville, the wretched compiler of the Atla.s Historique, has, in his map of Ireland, represented the 142 HISTORY OF IRELAND. How far the stern grasp of Roman authority might have succeeded in effacing from the minds of the Irish their old habits and predilections, it is needless now to inquire. But had we no other proof of the venerable antiquity of their na- tion, this fond fidelity to the past, this retrospective spirit, which is sure to be nourished in the minds of a people by long- hallowed institutions, would, in the absence of all other means of proof, be fully sufficient for the purpose. When, in addi- tion to this evidence impressed upon the very character of her people, we find Ireland furnished also with all that marks an ancient nation, — unnumbered monuments of otlier days and belonging' to unknown creeds, — a language the oldest of all European tongues still spoken by her people, and Annals writ- ten in that language of earlier date than those of any other northern nation of Europe*, tracing the line of her ancient kings, in chronological order, up as far at least as the com- mencement of the Christian era, — when we find such a com- bination of circumstances, all bearing in the same direction, all confirming the impression derived from the historical cha- racter of the people, — it is surely an abuse of the right of doubting, to reject lightly such an amount of evidence, or resist the obvious conclusion to which it all naturally leads. Among the most solemn of tlic customs observed in Ireland, during the times of paganism, was that of keeping, in each of the provinces, as well as at the seat of the monarchical go- vernment, a public Psalter, or register, in which all passing transactions of any interest were noted down. This, like all their other ancient observances, continued to be retained after the introduction of Christianity ; and to the great monasteries, all over the country, fell the task of watching over and conti- nuing these records.f That, in their zeal for religion, they should liave destroyed most of those documents which referred to the dark rites and superstitions of heathenism, appears highly credible.! But such records as related chiefly to past political country as reduced within tlie circle of the Roman sway. The pretended monk Richard, also, who, tlianks to th(> credulity of historians, was j)ermittcd to establish a new Roman province, Vcspasiana, to the north of Antonine's Wall, has, in like manner, made a present to Constantino the Great of the tributary submission of Ireland. "A. M. 4307, Constantiniis, qui Magnus postea dicitur . . . cui se sponte tributariam oftert Hibernia." * "CiEterarum enim jjentium Septcntrionalium antiqiiitatesscriptas longe recentiores esse existinio, si cum Hibernicis comparentur."— Dr. O'Connor, £p. Jfunc. xix. t " Alibi indicavi celebriora Hibernise monasteria amanviensem aluissc, Scribhinn appellatum."— iier. Hib. Script. Ep. Jfmic. I " Of the works of the Druids, as we are informed from the Lecan Records, by the learned Donald Mac Firbiss, no fewer than 180 tracts were committed RECORD OP AN ECLIPSE IN THE IRISH ANNALS. 143 events were not obnoxious to the same hostile feeling; and these the monks not only, in most instances, preserved, but carried on a continuation of them, from age to age, in much the same tone of veracious dryness as characterizes that simi- lar series of records, the Saxon Chronicle. In like manner, too, as the English annalists are known, in most instances, to have founded their narrations upon the Anglo-Saxon documents derived from their ancestors, so each succeeding Irish chroni- cler transmitted the records which he found existing, along with his own ; thus giving to the whole series, as has been well said of tlie Saxon Chronicle, the force of contemporary evidence.* The precision with which tlie Irish annalists have recorded, to the month, day, and hour, an eclipse of the sun, which took place in the year 664, affords both an instance of the exceed- ing accuracy with whicli they observed and noted passing events, and also an undeniable proof that the annals for that year, though long since lost, must have been in the hands of those who have transmitted to us that remarkable record. In calculating the period of the same eclipse, the Venerable Bedef — led astray, it is plain, by his ignorance of that yet undetect- ed error of the Dionysian cycle, by which the equation of the motions of the sun and moon was affected, — exceeded the true time of the event by several days. Whereas the Irish chroni- cler, wholly ignorant of the rules of astronomy, and merely re- cording what he had seen passing before his eyes, — namely, that the eclipse occurred, about the tenth hour, on the 3d of May, in the year 664, — has transmitted a date to posterity, of which succeeding astronomers have acknowledged the accuracy. It may be said, that this observation was supplied and inter- polated by some later hand ; but this would only rescue us from one difficulty to involve us as deeply in another ; as it must, in that case, be admitted that among the Irish of the middle ages were to be found astronomers sufficiently learned to be able to anticipate that advanced state of knowledge which led to the flames at the instance of St. Patrick. Such an example set the con- verted Christians to work in all parts, till, in the end, all the remains of the Druidic superstition were utterly destroyed. "—Z)issert. on the Hist, of Ireland. * " The annals of these writers are, perhaps, but Latin translations of Anglo-Saxon Chronicles .... at least, the existence of similar passages, yet in Anglo-Saxon, is one of the best proofs we can obtain of this curious fact, that the Latin narrations of all our chroniclers, of the events preceding the Conquest, are in general translations or abridgments from the Anglo- Saxon documents of our ancestors. This fact is curious, because, wherever it obtains, it gives to the whole series of our annals the force of contemporary evidence."— Turner, Hist, of Anglo-Saxons, book vi. chap. 7. t Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. iii. can. 27. 144 HISTORY OF IRELAND. to the coiTection of the Dionysian period, and to ascertain, to the precise hour, a long-past eclipse, which the learned Bede, as we have seen, was unable to calculate to the day. But how far, at a distance nearly two centuries from the time of this eclipse, were even the best Irish scholars from being capable of any such calculations may be judged from a letter, still ex- tant, on this very subject of eclipses, which w^as addressed to Charlemagne by an Irish doctor of the ninth century, named Dungal * The letter is in reply to a question proposed by the emperor to the most eminent scholars of that day in Europe, respecting the appearance, as had been alleged, of two solar eclipses, in the course of the year 810 ; and the Irish doctor, though so far right as to express his doubts that these two eclipses had been visible, is unable, it is plain, to assign any scientific reason for his opinion. Down to a much later period, indeed, so little had the Irish scholars advanced in this science, that, as it appears from 'the second part of the Annals of Inis- fallen, they had one year f experienced much difficulty and con- troversy before they could succeed even in fixing Easter Day. It may be, therefore, taken for granted, that it was not from any scientific calculation of afler times, but from actual and personal observation at the moment that this accurate date of the eclipse in 664 was derived.]: With equal clearness does it follow that some written record of the observation must have reached those annalists, wiio, themselves ignorant of the mode of calculathig such an event, have transmitted it accurately to our days as they received it. There are still earlier eclipses,—^ one as far back as a. d. 496, — the years of whose appearance we find noted down by the chroniclers with equal correctness : and so great was the regularity with which, through every suc- ceeding age, all such changes in the ordinary aspect of the heavens was observed and registered, that, by means of these records, the chronologist is enabled to trace the succession, not only of the monarchs of Ireland, but of the inferior kings, bishops, and abbots, from the first introduction of Christianity, down to the occupation of the country by the English. * Epist. Dungali Ileclusi ad Carol. Magnum de duplici Solis Eclipsi, Ann. 810. This letter may be found in D'Af;h6ry's Spicilegium, torn, iii., together with some critical remark? upon it by Ismael Bullialdus, the learned champion of the Philolaic system, whom D'Acliery had consulted on the subject. t Rer. Hibern. Script. Prol. 2. cx.xxvi. Dr. O'Connor refers, for the above record, to the year 1444 ; but this is evidently a typographical error, such as abound, I regret to say, throughout this splendid work,— the continuation of the Annals of Inisfallen having come down no further than the year 1320. X Annals of Tigernach. For the substance of the argument, founded upon this record, I am indebted to Dr. O'Connor, Prol. 2. cxxxiv. I AUTHENTICITY OF THE IRISH ANNALS. 145 Having, therefore, in the accurate date of the eclipse of 664, and in its con-ect transmission to succeeding times, so strong an evidence of the existence of a written record at that period ; and knowing, moreover, that of similar phenomena in the two preceding centuries, the memory has also been transmitted down to after ages, it is not surely assuming too much to take for granted that the transmission was effected in a simOar man- ner ; and that the medium of written record, through which succeeding annalists were made acquainted with the day and hour of the solar eclipse of 664"*, conveyed to them also the following simple memorandum which occurs in their chroni- cles for the year 496. — " Death of Mac-Cuilin, bishop of Lusk. — An eclipse of the sun — The pope Gelasius died." It thus appears pretty certain, that, as far back as the cen- tury in which Christianity became the established faith of Ire- land, the practice of chronicling public events may be traced ; and I have already shown, that the same consecutive chain of records carries the links back, with every appearance of histo- rical truth, to at least the commencement of the Christian era, if not to a century or two beyond that period. To attempt to fix, indeed, the precise time when the confines of history begin to be confused with those of fable, is a task in Irish antiquities, as in all others, of mere speculation and conjecture.f It has been seen that Tigernach, by far the best informed and most judicious of our annalists, places the dawn of certainty in Irish history at so early a period as the reign of Kimbaoth, about * The dates assigned to the several eclipses are, in this and other instances confirmed by their accordance with the catalogues of eclipses composed by modern astronomers, with those in the learned work of the Benedictines, and other such competent authorities. There is even an eclipse, it appears, no- ticed in the Annals of Ulster, ad. ann. 674, which has been omitted in VJirt de verifier les Dates.— I^p. Nunc. xciv. t According to Mr. O'Connor of Balenacgare, in his later and more mode- rate stage of antiquarianism, " it is from the succession of Feredach the Just, and the great revolution soon after, under Tuathal the Acceptable, that we can date exactness in our Heathen History."— Reflections on the Hist, of Ire- land. The period here assigned commences about a. d. 85. A Right Reve- rend writer, however, in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, car- ries his faith in Irish chronology much further. " A general agreement," says Bishop Barnard, " appears in the names and lineage of that long series of princes that succeeded and descended from the first conqueror down to the fifth century ; and the descent of the collateral branches is traced up to the royal stem with such precision and consistency, as shows it to have been once a matter of public concern. The later bards and seanachies could not have fabricated tables that should have stood the test of critical examination as these will do ; from whence I infer, that they have been a true transcript from ancient records then extant, but since destroyed. I am ready to admit, however, that the transactions of those times are mixed with the fictions of later ages .... it is, therefore, neither to be received nor rejected in the gross, but to be read with a sceptical caution." — Enquiry concerning the Ori- ginal, (^c, by Barnard, Bishop of Killaloe. Vol. I. 13 146 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 300 years before the birth of Christ : and it is certain that building of the celebrated Palace of Emania, during that moi arch's reign, by establishing an era, or fixed point of tim^ from whence chronology might begin to calculate, gives to t dates and accounts of the succeeding reigns an appearance accuracy not a little imposing. This apparent exactness, ho ever, in the successions previous to the Christian era, will nt stand the test of near inquiry. For the purpose of making o a long line of kings before tiiat period, a deceptive scheme of chronology has been adopted ; and all the efforts made b^ O'Flaherty and others to connect the traditions of those tim into a series of regular history, but serve to prove how hopelei or, at least, wholly uncertain, is the task. As we descend towards the first age of Christianity, events stand out from the ground of tradition more prominently, and begin to take upon them more of the substance of historical truth. The restoration, under Eochy Feyloch, of the ancient Pentarchy whicli liad been abolislied by the monarch Hugon — the important advance made in civilization during the reij of Conquovar Mac Ness, by committing the laws of the cou try to writing, — tliese and other signal events, almost coe with the commencement of Christianity, border so closely u that period to whicli, it has been shown, written records mi probably extended, as to be themselves all but historical. In corroboration of the view here taken of the authentic^ of the Irish Annals, and of the degree of value and confiden which is due to them, 1 need but refer to an authority whicH^ on such subjects, ranks among the higliest. " The Chronicles of Ireland," says Sir James Mackintosh, " written in the Irish language, from the second century to the landing of Henry Plantagenet, have been recently published, with the fullest evidence of their genuineness and exactness. The Irish na- tion, though they are robbed of many of their legends by this authentic publication, are yet by it enabled to boast that they possess genuine history several centuries more ancient than any other European nation possesses, in its present spoken lan- guage;— they have exchanged their legendary antiquity for historical fame. Indeed, no other nation possesses any monu- ment of its literature, in its present spoken language, which goes back within several centuries of the beginning of these chronicles."* * Hist, of England, vol. i. chap. 2. A writer in tho Edin. Rev. No. xcii., in speaking of Dr. O'Connor's work, thus, in a similar manner, expresses himself:—" We have hero the works of the ancient Irish historians, divested of modern fable and romance ; and whatever opinion may be formed of the early traditions they record, satisfactory evidence is afforded that many facts AUTHENTICITY OF THE IRISH KECOKDS. 147 With the exception of the mistake into which Sir James Mackintosh has here, rather unaccountably, been led, in sup- posing that, among the written Irish chronicles which have come down to us, there are any so early as the second century, the tribute paid by him to the authenticity and historical im- portance of these documents* appears to me, in the highest degree, deserved ; and comes with the more authority, from a writer whose command over the wide domain of history ena- bled him fully to appreciate the value of any genuine addition to it. It has been thus clearly, as I conceive, demonstrated that our Irish Annals are no forgery of modern times; no inven- tion, as has been so often alleged, by modern monks and versi- fiers : but, for the most part, a series of old authentic records, of which the transcripts have from age to age been delivered down to our own times. Though confounded ordinarily with the fabulous tales of the Irish Bards, these narrations bear on the face of them a character the very reverse of poetical, and such as, in itself alone, is a sufficient guarantee of their truth. It has been shown, moreover, that the lists preserved of the ancient Irish kings (more ancient than those of any other coun- try in modern Europe) are regulated by a system of chronolo- gy which, however in many respects imperfect, computes its dates in the ancient mode, by generations and successions; and was founded upon the same measures of time — the lunar year, and the regular recurrence of certain periodical festivals — by which the Greeks, the Romans, and other great nations of antiquity, all computed the earlier stages of their respective careers. they relate, long anterior to our earliest chroniclers, rest on contemporary authority Some of Dr. O'Connor's readers may hesitate to admit tlie degree of culture and prosperity he claims for his countrymen ; but no one, we think, can deny, after perusing his proofs, that the Irish were a lettered people, while the Saxons were still immersed in darkness and ignorance." I .shall add one other tribute to the merit of Dr. O'Connor's work, coming from a source which highly enhances the value of the praise : — " A work," says Sir F. Palgrave, " which, whether we consider the learning of the editor, the value of the materials, or the princely munificence of the Duke of Bucking- liam, at whose expense it was produced, is without a parallel in modern lite- rature." — Rise of the English Commoniocalth. * How little, till lately, these Annals were known, even to some who have written most confidently re.specting Ireland, may he seen by reference to a letter addressed by Mr. O'Connor to General Vallancey, acknowledging his perusal then, for the first time, of the Annals of Tigernach and of Inisfallen, which his venerable friend had lately lent hhn.—RefierA. on Hist, of Ireland, Collect. No. 10. The ignorance of Mr. Beauford, too, a professed Irish anti- quary, respecting the valuable work of Tigernach, is shown by the statement in his Druidism Revived, (Collectan. Hib. No. vii.) that the records of this annalist commence only at the fifth century, " without making the least ijiention of the pagan state of the Irish." 148 HISTORY OF IRELAND. CHAPTER IX. REVIEW OF THE INSTITUTIONS AND STATE OF CIVILIZATION OF THE PAGAN IRISH. Having thus pointed out how far reliance may safely be placed on that brief abstract of the earlier portion of Irisl history, which has been given in a preceding chapter, it may^ be worth while to pause and contemplate the picture which this period of our annals presents ; a picture the more worthy of attention, as, from that persevering adherence to old customs, habits, and, by natural consequence, dispositions, which has ever distinguished the course of the Irish people, the same peculiarities of character that mark any one part of their country's history will be found to pervade every other ; inso- much, that, allowing only for that degree of advancement in the arts and luxuries of life, which in the course of time could not but take place, it may be asserted, that such as the Irish were in the early ages of their pentarchy, such, in most re- spects, they have remained to the present day. We have seen that, from the earliest times of which her traditions preserve the memory, Ireland was divided into a cer- tain number of small principalities, each governed by its own petty king, or dynast, and the whole subordinate to a supreme monarch, who had nominally, but seldom really, a control over their proceedings. This form of polity, which continued to be maintained, without any essential innovation upon its principle, down to the conquest of the country by Henry IL, was by no means peculiar to Ireland, but was the system com- mon to the whole Celtic, if not also Teutonic race*, and, like all the other primitive institutions of Europe, had its origin in the East. Without going so far back as the land of Canaan, in the time of Joshua, where every city could boast its own king, we find that the small and narrow territory of the Phoenicians was, in a similar manner, parcelled out into kingdoms; and from Homer's account of the separate dominions of the Gre- cian chiefs, it would seem that they also were constructed upon the same Canaanite pattern. The feeling of clanship, indeed, out of which this sort of government by a chieftainry * During the heptarchy, the island of Great Britain contained about fifteen kingdoms, Saxon, British, and Scotch ; and in one of the smallest of them, the kingdom of Kent, there were at one time three chiefs on whom the an- nalists bestow the title of king. See Edin. Review, No.lxx. art. 12. THE PRINCES ELECTIVE. 149 sprung, appears to have prevailed strongly in Greece, and to have been one of the great cements of all their confederations, warlike or political.* In none of these countries, however, do the title and power of Royalty appear to have been partitioned out into such mi- nute divisions and subdivisions as in the provincial government of Ireland, where, in addition to the chief king of each pro- vince, every subordinate prince, or head of a large district, assumed also the title of king, and exercised effectually within his own dominions all the powers of sovereignty, — even to the prerogative of making war, not only with his coequal princes, but with the king of the whole province, whenever he could muster up a party sufficiently strong for such an enterprise. To the right of primogeniture, so generally acknowledged in those ages, no deference whatever was paid by the Irish. Within the circle of the near kin of the reigning prince, all were alike eligible to succeed him ; so that the succession may be said to have been hereditary as to the blood, but elective as to the person. t Not only the monarch himself was created thus by election, but a successor, or Tanistj;, was, during his lifetime, assigned to him by the same process ; and as if the position alone of heir-apparent did not render him sufficiently formidable to the throne, the law, in the earlier ages, also, it is said, conferred upon him the right of being chief general of the army, and chief judge of the whole state or kingdom. For the succession to the minor thrones a similar provision was made : to every petty king a successor was, in like manner, appointed, with powers proportioned to those of his chief; and thus, in addition to tlie constant dissension of all these * The opinion that the feudal system originated in the East, is not without some strong evidence in its favour. In Diodorus Siculus, (lib. 1.) we find the tenure by military service pretty accurately described, and said to be a cus- tom of the Egyptians, as well as of some Greek cities derived from them. AevTcpav oe ra^iv ytvcadai rrjv rwv ycwjuopwi', toiv os tois kut Aiyvnrov evofxa^oixcvoig ycwp- yois Kai Tovs fia^Ljjiovs Trapc^oiievois, See Richardson, (Dissert, on the Languages, &c. of Eastern Nations), who asserts that feudality "flourished in the East, with much vigour, in very early times." t Campbell's Strictures, &c. sect. v. I "Whoever knows any thing of Irish history will readily agree, that an Irish Tanist of a royal family, even after those of that quality were deprived of the judiciary power, and not always invested with the actual command of the army, was, notwithstanding, held in such high consideration, as to be esteemed nothing less than a secondary king. The title of Righ-damnha, meaning king in fieri, was generally given to the presumptive succes.sor of the reigning kir\g."—Di.tsert. on Laws of the Jincient frit'/i. 13* 150 HISTORY OF IRELAND princes among themselves*, each saw by his side an adult and^ powerful rival, chosen generally without any reference to his own choice or will ; and, as mostly happens, even where the successor is so by hereditary right, forming an "authorized rally- ing-point for the ambitious and disaffected. So many contrivances, as they would seem, for discord, could not but prove successful. All the defects of the feudal system were here combined, without any of its atoning advantages. It is true that an executive composed of such divided and mutually thwarting powers must have left to the people a con- siderable portion of freedom ; but it was a freedom, under its best aspects, stormy and insecure, and which life was passed in struggling for, not in enjoying. The dynasts themselves, being, from their position, both subjects and rulers, were, by turns, tyrants and slaves: even the monarchy itself was often regarded but as a prize to the strongest ; and faction pervaded all ranks, from the hovel to the supreme throne. Accordingly, as may be gathered from even the comparatively pacific events I have selected, commotion and bloodshed were, in those times, the ordinary course of public affairs. Among the numerous occupants of thrones, the tenure of authority and of life was alike brief; and it is computed that, of the supreme kings who wielded the sceptre, before the introduction of Christianity, not one seventh part died a natural death, the remaining sove- reigns having been taken oft* in the field, or by murder. The same rivalry, the same temptations to violence, were in opera- tion throughout all the minor sovereignties : every provincial king, every head of a sept, had his own peculiar sphere of tur- bulence, in which, on a smaller scale, the same scenes were enacted ; in which the law furnished the materials of strife, and the sword alone was called in to decide it. Among the many sources of this discord must not be for- gotten those tributes, or supplies, which, in return for the sub- sidies granted to them by their superiors, the inferior princes were bound to furnish. This exchange of subsidy and tribute, — the latter being usually paid in cattle, clothes, utensils, and, frequently, military aidf, — was carried on proportionably * The following is OTlaherty's applausive view of this system :— " He (Seidell) cjinnot produce an instance in all Europe of a more ancient, perfect, or better-establisiied form of government than that of Ireland ; where the sovereign power was concentered in one king, and the subaltern power, gra- dually descending from the five kings to the lowest classes of men, represents and exactly resembles the Hierarchy of the Celestial Christ, described in the verses addressed to the archangel Michael:'— Ogyg., part i. book 1. t There is extant a book containing the laws of these different subsidies and tributes, called the Leabhar na Ceart, or Book of Rights, and attributed to St. Benin, the favourite disciple of St. Patrick. It is clear, however, from PRIVILEGES OF THE CHIEFTAINS. 151 through all the descending scale of dynasties, and its mutual obligations enforced as strictly between the lord of the smallest rath and his dependents, as between the monarch and his sub- ordinate kings. Among the various forms in which tribute was exacted, not the least oppressive were those periodical progresses of the monarch, during which he visited the courts of the different provincial kings, and was, together with his retinue, entertained, for a certain time, by each. Every in- ferior lord or chieftain assumed a similar privilege, and, at certain seasons, visiting from tenant to tenant, was maintained, with all his followers, at their expense. This custom was called, in after-times, (by a name not, I suspect, of Irish origin), coshering. Though the acceptance of subsidy from the monarch implied an acknowledgment of subordination and submission, it was of a kind wholly different from that of the feoffees, in the feudal system*, who, by the nature of their tenures, were subjected to military service ; v/hereas, in Ireland, the subordinate princes were entirely free and independent of those above them, hold- ing their possessions under no condition of any service or homage whatsoever.! Even in France, the great feudatories, in many instances, did not hesitate to take arms against their sovereign ; and still less scrupulous, it may be supposed, were the numerous free tenants of thrones under the Irish system. f the corslets and suits of armour so profusely enumerated in the list of royal gifts, that these " State Laws of Subsidies," as Vallancey styles them, must have been of a much later date ; not more ancient, probably, than those songs and tales bearing the name of the poet Oisin, in which a similar display of rich armour is prematurely introduced. An account of this curious volume may be found in the Trans. Iberno-Celt. Soc, and in Vallancey's Dissert, on the Laws of the Ancient Irish. * That there was a degree of resemblance between the feudal system and the Irish, will appear from the description given by Mr. Hallam of the state of France at the time when Hugh Capet usurped the throne. " France," says this admirable historian, " was rather a collection of states partially allied to each other, than a single monarchy. The kingdom was as a great fief, or rather a bundle of fiefs, and the king little more than one of a number of feudal nobles, differing rather in dignity than in power from some of the rest." — View of the State of Europe during the Middle jigcs. There were, Iiowever, as I have shown above, essential differences between the two sys- tems ; and Mr. Hallam himself, in speaking of the constitution of ancient Ireland, remarks that the relations borne by the different ranks of chieftains to each other and to the crown, may only loosely be called federal."— Co7i5(i- tut. Hist. vol. iii. t This principle was retained, even after the subjection of the country to the English. " The Irish lords," says Sir J. Davis, " did only promise to be- come tributary to Henry II., and such as pay tribute are not properly sub- jects, but sovereigns." I According to Vallancey, even the monarch himself was no more exempt from attack than the rest of his royal brethren :— " Most certain it is, that the provincial kings and other sovereigns never acknowledged any supreme 152 HISTORY OF IRELAND. Sufficient pretexts for withholding tribute from the monarch were seldom wanting to the factious ; and hy recourse to arms alone could the sovereign, in such cases, seek redress. On the eve, sometimes, of a battle, the tributaries failed in bringing up their promised aid ; or, still worse, entered the field reluc- tantly, and, on the first attack, took flight* Under any circumstances, so general and constant a state of warfare must, by rendering impossible the cultivation of the peaceful arts, prove fatal to the moral advancement of the people ; but the civil and domestic nature of the feuds in which the Irish were constantly engaged, could not but render them, beyond all other species of warfare, demoralizing and de- grading. To the invasion of a foreign land men march v^ith a spirit of adventure, which throws an air of chivalry even around rapine and injustice ; while they who resist, even to the death, any invasion of their own, are sure of enlisting the best feelings of human nature in their cause. But the san- guinary broils of a nation armed against itself have no one elevating principle to redeem them, and are inglorious alike in victory and defeat. Whatever gives dignity to other warfare was wanting in these personal, factious feuds. The peculiar bitterness attributed to family quarrels marks also the course of civil strife ; and that flow of generous feeling which so often succeeds to fierce hostility between strangers, has rarely, if ever, been felt by parties of the same state who have been once arrayed in arms against each other. One of the worst results, indeed, of that system of law and government under which Ireland first started into political existence, and retained, in full vigour of abuse, for much more than a thousand years, was the constant obstacles which it presented to the growth of a public national spirit, by separating the mass of the people into mutually hostile tribes, and accustoming each to merge all thought of the general peace or welfare in its own factious views, or the gratification of private revenge. That separate states may be so bound in federate union as to combine effectively for all the great purposes of peace and war, is sufficiently proved by more than one historical instance. But there was no such form or principle of cohesion in the members of the Irish pentarchy. The interposing power as- rijjht in lhft.se pretenders to monarchy, but always asserted their own inde- l)endency aayoi) tovs ^c -Kartpai TtXivT-naavrai KareaOuiv ev kuXw tiQeucvoi Kai (^avtpws /ito-y£ff0ai rati tc aXXais yvvai^i yai fiijTpaai. /cat ahzXacri rtvas av6p(j)i:ovi taduiv., oxrncp kui Twv (iptrravwv rovi KUTToiKovvTag ttjv ovojxa^oixtviiv Ipiv — Lib. v. Of the ap- plication of this passage to Ireland, Rennel thus doubtfully speaks:—" It is not altogether certain, though highly probable, that the country intended is Ireland." X Omnium virtutum ignari, pietatis admodum expertes.— Lib. iii.c. 6. § Fas atque nefas eodem animo ducunt. 11 Diodorus himself acknowledges that, at the time when he wrote, the British isles were among the regions least known to the world :— 'H/ctara ncTTTdxcv vKo Tt]v Koivrjv av9p(i)7:u)v tniyvwaiv.—'Lib. iii. EARLY COMMERCE. 161 century after Diodorus had completed his history, we find Pom- ponius Mela declaring, that until the expedition of the empe- ror Claudius, then in progress, Britain had been shut out from the rest of the world.* When such, till that period, had been the general ignorance respecting Britain, it may be judged how secluded from the eyes of Europe must have been the still more western island in her neighbourhood ; and how little known its internal state, except to those Celtic and Iberian tribes of Spain, with whom the commerce which then fre- quented the Irish harbours, i^ust have been chiefly inter- changed. It is, indeed, curious, as contrasted with the reports of her brute barbarism just cited, that the first authentic glimpse given of the state of Ireland by the Romans, should be to disclose to us such a scene of busy commerce in her har- bours, and of navigators in her waters ; while, to complete the picture, at the same moment, one of her subordinate kings was a guest, we are told, in the tent of Agricola, and negotiating with him for military aid. The geographer Strabo, another of the witnesses adduced in proof of Irish barbarism, was equally, disqualified with Diodo- rus from giving evidence upon the sulDJect, and from precisely the same cause,— his entire ignorance of all relating to it. Even on matters lying within the sphere of his own peculiar science, this able geographer has, in his account of Ireland, fallen into the most gross and presumptuous errorsf; presump- tuous, inasmuch as some of them were maintained in direct and wilful defiance of what had been delivered down, upon the same points, by the ancient Greek geographers, who, fi'om fol- lowing closely in the steps of the Phoenicians, were, in most instances, correct. It ought, however, in justice to Strabo, to be mentioned, that he prefaces his account of the Irish brutali- ties by admitting that he had not received it from any trust- worthy authority. |: How little could have been known of Ireland at the time when Mela wrote, may be inferred from the fact which he him- self tells us, that even Britain was then, for the first time, about to be made known to her invaders. But many a British * Britannia, qualis sit qualesque progeneret, mox certiora et magis ex- plorata dicentur. Q,uippe tamdiu clausam aperit ecce Principum Maximus, Claudius.— Z>e Sit. Orb. lib. iii. t Among others of these errors, he represents Ireland so far to the north of Britain, as to be almost uninhabitable from extremity of cold. — Lib. ii- As far as we have at present the means of judging, his predecessors Era- tosthenes and Pytheas were far more correctly informed as to the geography of the western parts of Europe. I Kat Tavra 6' 6i>raj Xcyoixcv, ws ovk e^ovTcg a^iomarovi naprvpag — Libiv. 14* 162 HISTORY OF IRELAND. campaign took place after that event, before Ireland was even thought of; and, till the time of Agricola's expedition, it was, to the Romans, an undiscovered land. With regard to Solinus, besides that the period at which he lived seems to be altoge- ther uncertain, he is allowed, in general, to have been but an injudicious compiler from preceding writers, and little stress, therefore, is to be laid on his authority. It is, then, manifest, that all the evidence derived from foreign sources, to prove the barbarous state of the Irish before the Christian era, must, from the very nature of the authorities themselves, be considered worthless and null ; while the nu- merous testimonies which Ireland still can produce, in her na- tive language, her monuments, her ancient annals and tradi- ditions, all concur m refuting so gross and gratuitous an as- sumption. Having disposed thus of the chief, if not the only strong grounds of one of the two conflicting hypotheses, to which the subject of Irish antiquities had given rise, I am bound to deal no less unsparingly with that other and far more agree- able delusion, which would make of Ireland, in those early ages, a paragon of civilization and refinement, — would exalt the splendour of her Royal Palaces, the romantic deeds of her Red-Branch Knights, the Celestial Judgments of her Brehons, and the high privileges and functions of her Bards. That there is an outline of truth in such representations, her most authen- tic records testify ; — it is the filling up of this mere outline which is, for the most part, overcharged and false. The songs and legends of the country are, in such descriptions, confound- ed with her history ; her fictions have been taken for realities, and her realities heightened into romance. Those old laws and customs of the land, so ruinous, as we have seen, to peace and industry, could not have been otherwise than fatal to the progress of civilization ; nor can any one who follows the dark and turbid course of our ancient history, through the unvaried scenes of turbulence and rapine which it traverses, suppose for an instant, that any high degree of general civilization could coexist with habits and practices so utterly subversive of all the elements of civilized life. At the same time, speculating on the aspect of Irish society at any period whatsoever, full allowance is to be made for those anomalies wliich so often occur in the course of affairs in that country, and which, in many instances, baffle all such calculations respecting its real condition, as are founded on those ordinary rules and principles by which other countries . are judged. Even in the days of Ireland's Christian fame, when, amidst the darkness which hung over the rest of Eu- CONTRAST IN THE NATIONAL CHARACTER. 163 rope, she stood as a light to the nations, and sent apostles in all directions from her shores, — even in that distinguished pe- riod of her history, we shall find the same contrasts, the same contrarieties of national character, presenting themselves; insomuch that it would be according as the historical painter selected his subjects of portraiture — whether from the calm and holy recesses of Glendalough and Inisfallen, or the rath of the rude chief and the fierce councils of rebel kings — that the country itself would receive either praise or reprobation, and be delineated as an island of savages or of saints. But there is an era still more strongly illustrative of this view of Irish character, and at the same time recent enough to be within the memory of numbers still alive. That it is possible for a state of things to exist, wherein some of the best and noblest fruits of civilization may be most conspicu- ously displayed in one portion of tlie community, while the habitual violences of barbarism are, at the same time, raging in another, is but too strongly proved by the history of modern Ireland during the last thirty years of the eighteenth centu- ry, — a period adorned, it will hardly be denied, by as many high and shining names as ever graced the meridian of the most favoured country, and yet convulsed, through its whole course, by a furious struggle between the people and their rulers, maintained on both sides with a degree of ferocity, a reckless violence of spirit, -worthy only of the most uncivilized life. Such an anomalous state of society, so fresh within re- collection, might abate, at least, if not wholly remove, any confidence in the conclusion, that, because the public annals of ancient Ireland leave little else in the memory but a con- fused chaos of factions and never-ending feuds, she could not therefore have arrived at a higher rank in civilization than such liabits of turbulence and lawlessness are usually found to indicate. In the ill repute of the ancient Irish for civilization, their neighbours, the Britons, equally shared ; and the same charges of incest, community of wives, and other such abominations, which we find alleged against the Irish, are brought also against the natives of Britain by CaBsar and Dion Cassius.* It is possible that, in both instances, the imputations may be traced * Uxoris habent deni duodenique inter se communas, et maxime fratres cum fratribus parentesque cum liberis."— X)e Bell. Oal. lib. v. cap. 16. In referring to the charges of these two historians against the Britons, Whitaker says, "The accusation is too surely as just as it is scandalous."— ifi5«. of Manchester, book I. chap. x. sect. 5. In a sermon of St. Chrysostom, quoted by Camden (Introduct. Ixx.) that father exclaims, " How often in Britain did men eat the flesh of their own kind!" 164 HISTORY OF IRELAND. to that policy of the commercial nations of antiquity which led them to impute all manner of atrocities and horrors to the inhabitants of places where they had established a profitable commerce.* We have seen with what jealous care the Phoe- nician merchants, and subsequently, also, the Carthaginians and Greeks, endeavoured to turn the attention of the world from their trade with the British Isles, so as to prevent all commercial rivals from interfering with their monopoly. A part of this policy it may have, perhaps, been to represent the Irish as brutes and cannibals, and their neighbours the Britons as little better ; and the traders who crowded the ports of the former island in the first century would be sure to encourage the same notion. So well and long did these traditional stig- mas adhere, that the poet Ausonius, in the fourth century, pro- nounces the appellation Briton to be then synonymous with that of bad or wicked manf ; and about the same period, — not many years previously to the great naval expedition of the Irish monarch, Niul Giallach, against the coasts of Britain, — we find St. Jerome gravely describing an exhibition which he had himself witnessed in his youth, in Gaul, of some cannibal Scots, or Irishmen, regaling themselves upon human flesh.| Much the same sort of inconsistencies and contradictions as are found to embarrass and render difficult any attempt to esti- mate the social and moral condition of the ancient Irish, will be found also in the facts illustrative of their state of advance- ment in those arts, inventions, and contrivances, which are the invariable results of civilized life. That, so early as the first century, their harbours were much resorted to by navigators and merchants, the authority of Tacitus leaves us no room to doubt; and their enjoyment of a foreign trade maybe even referred to a much remoter period, as we find Ptolemy, in cit- ing testimony of one of those more ancient geographers, from whom his own materials on the subject of Ireland are mostly derived, remarking, among his other claims, to credibility, his having rejected all such accounts of that country as were * 111 the opinion of Pownal, this policy of the ancients, in " keeping people awav from their possessions," will account for the tales of the Anthropophagi, the Syrens, and all the other " nietamorphosic fables, turning policied and commercial people into horrid and savage monsters." t Aut Brito hie non est Silvius, aut malus est.—Epig. 110 This poet has a whole string of pointless epigrams on the same quibble. Cellarius, in quoting one of them, says, " Male iljo tempore Britanni audie- bant :" ideo, epigrammate 112,—" Nemo bonus Brito est." J duid loquar de ceteris nationibus cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia vi- derim Scolos, gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus."— 5'. Hieron. contra Jovinian, lib. ii ADVANCEMENT IN THE ARTS, ETC. 165 gathered from merchants who had visited her ports with a view to traffic alone.* Notwithstanding this clear and authentic evidence of her having been, not merely in the first century, but in times pre- ceding our era, in possession of a foreign commerce, it appears equally certain that neither then, nor for many ages after, had the interior trade of the country advanced beyond the rude stages of barter; nor had coined money, that indispensable ingredient of civilized lifef, been yet brought into use. It is true, both O'Flaherty and Keating tell us of a coinage of sil- ver in the reign of the monarch Eadna Dearg, no less than 466 years before the birth of Christ, at a place called Argeatre, as they say, on the banks of the river Suir, in Ossory. But it is plain that the name here, as in many other such traditions, was the sole foundation of the fable, — etymology having been, in all countries, one of the most fertile sources of fiction and conjecture.| Equally groundless may be pronounced the ac- count given by Keating of mints erected and money coined for the service of the state, about the time of the commence- ment of St. Patrick's apostleship. It is certain that, for many centuries after this period, the custom of paying gold by the weight may be traced ; and so long did cattle, according to the primitive meaning of the term pecunia, continue to be the measure of value, that, so late as the beginning of the six- teenth century, the celebrated Book of Ballymote^ (a compila- tion from the works of some earlier Irish seanachies), was pur- chased by a certain Hugh O'Donnel for 140 milch cows ; — a transaction combining in itself, rather curiously, at once the high estimation of literary merit which marks an advanced state of society, and a mode of payment belonging only to its very earliest ages. While in their home commerce such evidence of backward- ness presents itself, their means of carrying on a foreign trade * Thus, in the Latin version of Ptolemy :— " Atqui et ipse Marinus Tyrius mercatorum relalionibus nequaquam fidem adliibere videtur. Itaque Philc- monis sermoni longitudinem Insula Hiberniae ab ortu occasum usque xx. dierum esse tradenti haudquaquam adstipulatur, dicens hoc eos a mercato- ribus percepisse, hos enini ait veritatis in derogationem haud curari, intentos mercimoniis."— Gco^. lib. ii. c. 11. t " Soyez seul, et arrivez, par quelque accident, chez un peuple inconnu, si vous voyez une piece de monnoie, comptez que vous etes arrive chez une na- tion poVicee."— Montesquieu, 1. xviii. c. 15. X By the same ready process, another Irish monarch, Acpy Fuarchis, who reigned a. m. 3308, was made the inventor of Currachs, or wicker boats ; his name, Fuarchis, signifying a boat not well joined.— O^y. part iii. chap. 34. § For an account of the origin and transmission of this celebrated Book of Records, which was chiefly compiled by Solomon O'Drum, see Trans. Iberno- Celt. Society. 166 HISTORY OF IIIELAND. appear to have been equally limited. For any distance beyond their own and the immediately neighbouring- coasts, the re- sources of their navigation were but rude and insecure, con- sisting chiefly of those large, open boats, called Currachs, which, like the light vessels of osier and leather used by the ancient Liburnians, were composed of a frame-work of wood and wicker, covered over with the skins of cattle or of deer. These boats, though in general navigated by oars, were capable of occasionally carrying masts and sails, — the latter being, like those of the Veneti, formed of hides. There was also in use, among the Irish, for plying upon the rivers and lakes, small canoes, made out of trees ; and it must have been of this sort of rude craft that Giraldus spoke, when he said that the tail of a live salmon could upset them.* That the currachs were considered to a certain degree seaworthy, may be judged from the expeditions in which they were sometimes employed. It was in a skiff of this kind, described by Columba's biographer as furnished with sails, that St. Cormac is said to have more then once ventured fortli in quest of some lonely isle in the ocean where he miglit fix his retreatf ; and in one of these exploratory cruises he was out of sight of land, we are told, for fourteen days and nights. | It is among the many remarkable proofs of that identity of character and customs which the Irish preserved through so many ages, that, so far back as the time when Himilco visited these seas, the very same sort of boats were in use among the natives; and that the holy men of the "Sacred Island" were tlien seen passmg, in their hide -covered barks, from shore to shore, in the very same manner as was practised by her saints and missionaries more than a thousand years after, § A reverend historian cited in a preceding part of this work, has described, as we have seen, with much pomp and circum- stance, the fleet of the Irish monarch, Nial Giallach, with the shield of the admiral at the mast-head, the rowers chiming their oars to the music of the harp, and other such probable * Giraldus speaks more particularly of the British ciirrach.—{Descript. Camb.) " Cum autem naviculam salmo injectus cauda fortiter percusserit non absque periculo plerumque vecturam priter et vectorem evertit." t Eremum in oceano quarere. X Nam cum ejus navis a torris per quatuordecem ffistei temporis dies toti- demque noctes, plenis velis Austro flante vento, ad septentrionalis plagan caeli directo excurrere cuTsu.—^damnan. De. S. Columh. Abbate Hiensi. § Sed rei ad miraculum Navigia junctis semper aptant pellibus, Corioque vastum saepe percurrent salum. Fest. Jivien. Ora Maritim. bTATE or ARCIllTLCTUKE. 167 appurtenances. On the same poetical authority from whence this description is derived, we are told by another writer of the names given by the Irish mariners to particular stars, by whose light they were accustomed to steer in their voyages, — such as the Guide to Erin, the Guide to Scandinavia, the Guide of Night.* Such false pictures of manners, put forth in grave works, and on such authority as that of Ossian, are little less than deliberate insults on a reader. To the facts above stated, as apparently inconsistent with the notion of the Irish having been, in those times, a trading people, may be opposed, on the other side, the actual traces still remaining of ancient causeways and roads throughout the country.f One great commercial road, having walls, we are told, on each side, strengthened with redoubts, was carried from Galway along the south boundaries of the people called an- ciently the Auteri, and along, by the borders of the counties of Meath and Leinster, to Dublin.| If the conjecture of Whita- ker, too, be adopted, that the great road, called the Watling Street, extending from Dover, through London, as far as Anglesey in Wales, was originally denominated, by the an- cient Britons, the Way of the Irish, it is equally probable that the causeway from Galway to Dublin formed a part of the same line of conveyance ; and that articles of commerce from the western and central parts of Ireland may have been, by this route, transmitted through Britain, and into Gaul. Among the tests by which the civilization of a people may be judged, their degree of advancement in the art of archi- tecture is, perhaps, one of the least fallible ; but here again the historian is encountered by the same contrasts and incon- sistencies, — not merely between tradition and existing visible evidence, but also between the several remaining monuments themselves, of which some bespeak all the rudeness of an in- fant state of society, while others point to a far different origin, and stand as marks of a tide of civilization long since ebbed away. In tlie geography of Ptolemy, we find a number of Irish cities enumerated, on some of which he even bestows the epithet illustrious, or distinguished^ ; and intimates that, in two of them, the cities Hybernis and Rheba, celestial obser- * Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary. t See Brewer, Introduct., for remarks on the vestiges of " ecclesiastical and commercial paved roads still observable in several parts of Ireland." " These public ways," he adds, " appear to have led from such sea-ports aa were formerly of principal consideration to the interior of the country." X Wood, Primitive Origin of the Irish, p. 96. § TrjS ^£ lovEpvias vticy al ciriarjixoi t:o\ei^. 168 HISTORY OF IRELAND. vations had been made. But though it is by no means im- probable that, in the time of those more ancient geographers from whom Ptolemy is known to have drawn his materials, such cities may have existed, his testimony on this point is to be received with some caution ; as in Germany, where, at the time when Tacitus wrote, no other habitations were known than detached huts and caves, this geographer, who published his work but about half a century later, has contrived to conjure up no less than ninety cities. In the same manner, any in- ference that might be drawn in favour of the civilization of Ireland, from the supposition that those observations of the length of the solstitial days, by which the latitudes of the Irish cities were determined, had been really taken in those cities themselves, would prove, most probably, fallacious; as it is supposed that but few of the latitudes given by Ptolemy were the result of actual astronomical observation,* Of those ancient Raths, or Hill-fortresses, which formed the dwellings of the old Irish chiefs, and belonged evidently to a period when cities were not yet in existence, there are to be found numerous remains throughout the country. This species of earthen work is distinguished from the artificial mounds, or tumuli, by its being formed upon natural elevations, and al- ways surrounded by a rampart. Within the area thus inclosed, which was called the Rath, stood the habitations of the chief- tain and his family, whicli were, in general, small buildings constructed of earth and hurdles, or having, in some instances, walls of wood upon a foundation of earth. In outward shape, as I have said, these dwellings of the living resembled those mounds which the Irish raised over their dead ; and it is con- jectured of the ancient earthen works on the Curragh of Kil- dare, that while the larger rath was the dwelling of the ancient chieftains of that district, the small entrenchments formed their cemetry or burial-place. If thus uncivilized were the habitations of the great dynasts of those days, it may be im- agined what were the abodes of the humbler classes of the community; — though here, unfortunately, the imagination is not called upon for any effort ; as, in the cottier's cabin of the present day, the disgraceful reality still exists; and two thou- sand years have passed over the hovel of the Irish pauper in vain. ♦ " Q,uant a la durte du jour solstitial, nous avons deja dit, et nous verrons occasion de prouver encore, que la tres grande partie de ces especes de deter- minations contenues dans le huitieme livre de Ptol6mt;e n'6toit le r^sultat d'aucune observation astronomique, et qu'elle n'etoit conclue que d'apres les latitudes adoptees de son tems ; ainsi on ne pent leur accorder aucune con- fiance quand eWen ne sont pas apuy^es sur le t6moignage de quelques autrea 6crivains." — Oosselin, Recherches sur la Oiographie des Anciens. ANCIENT DWELLINGS. 169 A degree still lower, however, on the scale of comfort, would have been the lot of the ancient Irish, were it true, as Led- wicli and others have asserted, that they lived chiefly, in the manner of the Troglodytes, in subterranean caves. That some of those caverns, of which so great a number, both artificial and natural, have been discovered throughout Ireland, may have been used as places of refuge for the women and children during times of danger and invasion, appears to be highly pro- bable. We find some of them described as divided into apart- ments, and even denoting an attempt at elegance in their construction. They have also sometimes sustaining walls of dry stone- work, to confine the sides and support the flags which form the ceiling. But though they are pronounced to have been evidently subterranean houses, it is difficult to conceive human beings reduced to such abodes.* It was among a people thus little removed from the state of the Germans in the time of Tacitus, that the Palaces of Tara and Emania, as authentic records leave us but little room to doubt, displayed their regal halls, and, however scepticism may now question their architectural merits, could boast the admi- ration of many a century in evidence of their grandeur. That these edifices were merely of wood is by no means conclusive either against the elegance of their structure, or the civiliza- tion, to a certain degree, of those who erected them. It was in wood that the graceful forms of Grecian architecture first unfolded their beauty ; and there is reason to believe that, at the time when Xerxes invaded Greece, most of her temples were still of this perishable material. Not to lay too much stress, however, on these boasted struc- tures of ancient Ireland, of which there is but dry and meagre mention by her annalists, and most hyperbolical descriptions by her bards, there needs no more striking illustration of the strong contrasts which her antiquities present, than that, in the very neighbourhood of the earthen rath and the cave, there should rise proudly aloft those wonderful Round Towers, be- speaking, in their workmanship and presumed purposes, a con- nexion with religion and science, which marks their builders * " Some of them are excavated into the hard gravel, with the flags resting on no other support ; and so low that you can only sit erect in them ; that is, from three to four feet from the floor to the ceiling. I have not seen any hij?her than four feet The tradition of the country makes them gra- naries; but for granaries they could never have been intended, as it would have been very difficult to convey grain into them, through long and narrow passages, not more than two feet square." — Description of a remarkable Building, SfC, by F. C. Bland, Trans. R. Irish Jjcad., vol. xiv. See, for similar " hiding-pits," as^he calls them, among the Britons, King, Muniment. Antiq. book i. chap. 1, Vol. I. 15 170 HISTORY OF IRELAND. to have been of a race advanced in civilization and knowledge, — a race different, it is clear, from any of those who are known, from time to time, to have established themselves in the coun- try, and, therefore, most probably, the old aboriginal inhabit- ants, in days when the arts were not yet strangers on their shores. There are yet a few other facts, strongly illustrative of this peculiar view of our antiquities, to which it may be worth while briefly to advert. Respectmg the dress of the ancient Irish, we have no satisfactory information. In an account given of them by a Roman writer of the third century, they are repre- sented as being half naked* ; and the Briton Gildas, who wrote about three hundred years after, has drawn much the same picture of them.f It was only in battle, however, that they appear to have presented themselves in this barbarian fashion ; and a similar custom prevailed also among the ancient Britons and Picts. But, though no particulars of the dress of the Irish, in those remote times, have reached us, enough may be col- lected from the accounts of a later period, when they had become more known to Europe, to satisfy us that the Milesian lord of the rath and the plebeian of the hovel had as little advanced on the scale of civilization in their dress as in their dwellings ; and that, while the latter was most probably clothed, like the lower order of Britons, in sheepskin, the chief himself wore the short woollen mantle, such as was custom- ary, at a later period, among his countrymen, and which, ac- cording to some authorities, reached no further than the elbows; leaving, like the Rheno, or short mantle of the ancient Ger- mansj:, the remainder of the body entirely naked. There is reason to believe, however, that at that time, as well as subse- quently, they may have worn coverings for the thighs and legs, or, at least, that sort of petticoat, or fallin., as it was called, which is known to have been worn, as well as the braccse, by the Irish, in the time of Giraldus Cambrensis.^ * Adhuc semi-nudi.— £u7rec7t. Panegyric. Vet. t Magis VTiltus piliB quam corporum pudenda, pudendisque proxima, ves- libus tegentes.— GiWas. i Pellibus aut parvis rhenonum tegimentis utuntur, magna corporis parte nnAa.— Cces. de Bell. Gall. 1. vi. c. 21. § In their dress, as well as in most other respects, to attempt to distinguish very definitely between Celts and Teutons will be found a vain and fallacious task. We have seen that the Irish and Gaulish Celts were fond of variegated dresses ; and so, it appears, were the Lombards and Anglo-Saxons. " Vesti- menta (says Diaconus, 1. iv. c. 7.), qualia AngliSaxones habere solent, ornata institis latioribus, vario colore contextis." The braccae of the Irish were, like those of the Germans, tight, while the Sarmatians and Batavians pre- ferred them large and loose. " Et qui te laxis imitantur, Sarmata, braccis Vangiones, Batavique truces." Lucan, 1. i. 430. COSTLY REMAIIVS. 171 Such having been the rude state of the ancient Irish, within any range of time to which our knowledge of them extends, it remains to be asked, to whom then, to what race or period, could have belonged those relics of an age of comparative re- finement, those curious and costly ornaments of dress, some of the purest gold, elaborately wrought, and others of silver, which have been discovered, from time to time, in diiferent parts of Ireland, having been dug up out of fields and bogs where they must have lain hidden for ages ]* Nor is it only of ornaments for the person that these precious remains consist ; as there are found also among them instruments supposed to have been connected with religious worship, which are said to be of the finest gold, without any alloy, and to have, some of them, han- dles of silver, chased with plated gold.f In like manner, a variety of swords and other weapons^ have been discovered, the former of which would seem to have been fabricated before iron had been brought into use for such purposes, as they are all of a mixed metal, chiefly copper, admitting of a remarkably high polish, and of a temper to carry a very sharp edge. To attempt to reconcile, — even on the grounds already sug- gested, of the anomalous character of the people, — the civilized tastes, the skill in metallurgy, the forms of worship, which these various articles, in their several uses, imply, with such a state of things as prevailed in Ireland during the first ages of * " Within the limits of ray own knowledge," says the Rev. W. Hamilton, " golden ornaments liave been found to the amount of near one thousand pounds." — Letters concerning the Coast of Antrim. The superior richness of the urns and ornaments discovered in Ireland, compared with those found in the English barrows, is fully acknowledged by Sir Richard Hoare. " The Irish urns were," he says, " in general, more or- namented," and the articles of gold, also, " richer and more numerous,"— Tour in Ireland, General Remarks. t See Gough's Camden, vol. iv. Collectan. Hibern. vol. iv. Among other curious Irish remains, bishop Pococke produced to the Antiquarian Society a bracelet, or armilla, of fine gold. See drawing of this and a gold bracelet in Gough, vol. iv. pi. 14. Also plate 12. for some curious instruments, supposed by Pococke to be fibulae, while Simon and Vallancey are both of opinion that they were patera;, used by the ancient Druids. Among the most beautiful of the ornaments discovered in Ireland have been those golden torques or collars, supposed to have been worn by the Irish Druids, as, according to Strabo, they were by the Gauls. One of these, of delicate workmanship, and of the purest gold, is in the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne. I " One circumstance as to the swords seems to be decisive : — they are aa exactly and as minutely to every apparent mark the same with the swords of Sir W. Hamilton's collection, now in the British Museum, as if they came out of the same armoury. The former found in the field of Cannae are said to be Carthaginian ; these, therefore, by parity of reasoning, may likewise be said to have been of the same people." Qovernor PownaVs Account of some Irish Antiquities to the Society of Antiquarians, 1774. " What makes these brazen swords such a valuable remnant to the Irish antiquarian is, they serve to corroborate the opinion that the Phoenicians once had footing n this kingdom."— Ca7np&e«'s Philosoph. Survey of the South of Ireland. 172 HISTORY OF IRELAND. Christianity, appears altogether impossible ; and the sole solu- tion of this and other such contradictions, in the ancient history of the Irish, is that, at the time when they first became known to the rest of Europe, they had been long retrograding in civi- lization ; that, whether from the inroads of rude northern tribes, or the slowly demoralizing effects of their own political institutions, they had fallen, like many other once civilized nations, into eclipse ; and though, with true Celtic persever- ance, still clinging to their old laws and usages, their Assem- blies at Tara, their Colleges of Bards, the Great Psalter of their Antiquaries, yet preserving of the ancient fabric little more than the shell, and, amidst all these skeletons of a bygone civilization, sinking fast into barbarism. This view of the matter seems also remarkably confirmed by that interval of ignorance, and even oblivion, as to the state and fortunes of Ireland, which succeeded to the times of the geographer Py- theas, of Eratosthenes, and the Tyrian authorities of Ptolemy. By all these, and more especially the latter, the position and localities of that island appear to have been far better known than by Strabo or any of tlie later Greek authorities*, — a cir- cumstance to be explained only by the supposition that those ties of intercourse, whether commercial or religious, which the Irish once maintained, it is clear, with other nations, had during this interval been interrupted, and all the light that had flowed from those sources withdrawn. Through a nearly similar course of retrogradation we shall find them again doomed to pass, after their long and dark suffering under the yoke of the Danes, when, exhausted not more by this scourge than by their own internal dissensions, they sunk from the eminent station they had so long held in the eyes of Europe, and fell helplessly into that state of abasement, and almost barbarism, in which their handful of English conquerors found them. In the state of society which prevailed in Ireland, in the middle ages, when it differed but little, probably, from that of the period we are now considering, an eminent historian has discovered some points of resemblance to the picture represent- ed to us of the Homeric age of Greecef ; and it is certain that the style of living, as described by Homer, in the palace of Ulysses, the riot and revel in the great hall, which was the * Pytheam prseterea increpat Strabo ut mendac6m, qui Hiberniam ac Uxi- samam (Ushant) ad occidentem ponit a Gallia, cum hoec omnia, ait, ad Septen- trionem vergant. Itaque veteres geographi Hibernise situm definiunt melius quam scriptores seculi aurei Augusti, Himilco et riicenices melius quam Graci vel Romani \—Rer. Script. Hib. prol. i. xii. t Mitford, History of Greece, vol. i. chap. . THE BALLYCASTLE COAL-MINES. 173 w^ene of the cooking as well as of the feasting, — the supposed beggar admitted of the party, and, not least, the dunghill lying in the path from the court-gate to the hall door*, might all find a parallel in the mansions of Irish chieftains, even to a later period than that assigned by the historian. Among the numerous other vestiges still remaining of an age of civilization in Ireland, far anterior to any perioid with which her history makes us acquainted, should not be forgotten those extraordinary coal-works at Ballycastle, on the coast of Antrim, which are pronounced to have been wrought in times beyond even the reach of traditionf, and which a writer, by no means indulgent to the claims of Irish antiquities, conjectures, from the " marks of ancient operations" which they exhibit, to have been the work of some of the very earliest colonists of the country 4 The last resource with certain theorists, re- specting our antiquities, is to attribute all such works to the Danes ; and to this people the ancient coal- works of Ballycastle, as well as all the other mine excavations throughout Ireland, have been assigned. But the scanty grounds assumed for such a conjecture, and the utter improbability that a people, harass- ed as were the Danes, and never, at any period, in peaceable possession of the country, should have found time for such slow and laborious operations of peace, has been already by va- rious writers convincingly demonstrated. Postponing the consideration of some other usages and cha- racteristics of the Pagan Irish to a somewhat later period, * Odyss. lib. vii. t " The antiquity of this work is pretty evident from hence, that there does not remain the most remote tradition of it in the country ; but it is still more strongly demonstrated from a natural process which has taken place since its formation ; for the sides and pillars were found covered with sparry incrustations, which the present workmen do not observe to be depo- sited in any definite portion of time."— Rev. W. Hamilton' s Letters concerning the Coast of Jlntrim. X •' The superior intelligence of this people (the Damnii or Danaans) and of the Clanna Rhoboig, considered with Tacitus's account of the trade of Ireland, induce me to suppose that the coal-works at Ballycastle, on the northern coast, which exhibit marks of ancient operations, had been worked by either or both."— Wood's Inquiry into the Primitive Inhabitants of Ireland. The following evidence on this subject is worthy of attention :— " If we may judge from tiie number of ancient mine excavations which are stilt visible in almost every part of Ireland, it would appear that an ardent spirit for mining adventure must have pervaded this country at some very remote period. In many cases, no tradition that can be depended upon now remains of the time or people by whom the greater part of these works were originally commenced." This experienced engineer adds:—" It is worthy of remark, that many of our mining excavations exhibit appearances similar to the surface-workings of the most ancient mines in Cornwall, which are generally attributed to the Phoenicians."— iZeporf to the Royal Dublin Society, on the Metallic Mines of Lcinster, in 1828, by Richard Griffith, Esq. 15* 174 HISTORY OF IRELAND. when, remaining still unchanged, the materials for illustrating them will be found more ample and authentic, I shall here only advert to one or two points connected with their knowledge of the useftil arts and manner of living, respecting which inform- ation, however scanty, is to be found in the writings of the ancients. Those who regard Mela as sufficient authority for the barbarous habits of the people, will not, of course, reject his evidence as to the exercise among them of agriculture and grazing : — " The climate of Iverna," says this geographer, " is unfavourable to the ripening of seeds ; but so luxuriant in pas- ture, not only plenteous, but sweet, that the cattle fill them- selves in but a small part of the day, and, unless restrained from the pasture, would burst by over-eating."* Another favourite witness of the anti-Irish school, Solinus, thus speaks of the military weapons of the old natives : — " Those among them who study ornament, are in the habit of adorning the hilts of their swords with the teeth of sea-ani- mals, which they burnish to the whiteness of ivory ; for the chief glory of those people lies in their arms."t We have already seen that numbers of swords, made of brass, have been found in different parts of the country ; and of these some are averred to be exactly of the same description with the swords found on the field of Cannee, which are in Sir Wil- liam Hamilton's collection. Swords similar to these have been discovered also in Cornwall, and count Caylus has given an engraving of one, of tlie same kind, which he calls Gladius Hispaniensis, and which came, as it appears, from Hercu- laneum. It has been thought not improbable that all these weapons, the Irish as well as the others, were of the same P«nic or Phoenician origin, and may be traced to those colo- nies on the coasts of Spain which traded anciently with the British isles. There are said to have been likewise discovered some scythe-blades of bronze, such as were attached anciently to the wheels of war chariots^: ; the use of that Asiatic mode of warfare having prevailed formerly, we are told, in Ireland as well as in Britain. That for some parts of their armour, more especially their wicker shields, and bows with short ar- rows, the Irish were indebted to their Scythic conquerors, the * Iverna est caeli ad maturanda seinina iniqui ; yerum adeo luxuriosa herbis non Isetis modo, sed etiani dulcibus, ut se exigua parte diei peoora ini- pleant et nisi pabulo prohibeantur, diutibus pasta dissiliant.— £>e Situ Orbis. t Qui student cultui dentibus njarinaruui belluarum insigniunt ensium capulos, candicant enim ad eburneam claritatem ; nam priccipuaviris gloria est in ielis.— Solinus, Poly hist. X Meyrick on Ancient Armour, vol. i. One of these scythe-blades of bronze he describes as thirteen inches long. ESTABLISHBIENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 175 Scots, appears by no means unlikely.* But the most ancient remainsf of their weapons are the stone hatchets, and also those heads of arrows| and spears, some of flint, and others pointed with bones, the latter resembling those which, for want of iron, were used, as Tacitus tells us, by the ancient Fin-^ landers. 5 j^^^m^i^ ^-^ ^ CHAPTER X. INTRODUCTION OF ClilllSTIANITY INTO IRELAND. JLihrai The period of Irish history on which we are now enter, and of which the mission of St. Patrick forms the prin- cipal feature, will be found to exhibit, perhaps, as singular and striking a moral spectacle as any the course of human afl^irs ever yet presented. A community of fierce and proud tribes, for ever warring among themselves, and wholly secluded from all the rest of the world, with an ancient hierarchy entrenched in its own venerable superstitions, and safe from the weaken- ing infusion of the creeds of Greece or Rome, would seem to present as dark and intractable materials for the formation of a Christian people as any that could be conceived. The result proves, however, the uncertainty of such calculations upon national character, while it affords an example of that ready pliancy, that facility in yielding to new impulses and influences, which, in the Irish character, is found so remarkably combined with a fond adherence to old usages and customs, and with that sort of retrospective imagination which for ever yearns after the past. While, in all other countries, the introduction of Chris- tianity has been the slow work of time, has been resisted by * Ware's Antiquities, chap. 2. t " Hammers of stone have been found in the copper-mines of Kerry ; heads of arrows, made of flint, are often dug up, and are now esteemed tlie work of fairies."— CoWectan. No. 2. X According to a work quoted by Meyrick, these arrows must have been more ancient than even the time of the Phoenicians. " The inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, previous to their intercourse with the Phoenicians, had merely bows, with arrows of reed, headed with flint, or pointed with bones, sharpened to an acute edge." No sooner, however, did the Phoenicians effect an amicable interchange with these islanders, than they communicated to them the art of manufacturing their warlike instruments of metal.— CostMwe of the Orig. Inhab. of the British Isles. § Sola in sagittis spes, quas, inopia fcrri, ossibus aspenint.— German, c. 4(5. 176 HISTORY OF IRELAND. either government or people, and seldom effected without a lavish effusion of blood, in Ireland, on the contrary, by the in- fluence of one humble but zealous missionary, and with but little previous preparation of the soil by other hands, Chris- tianity burst forth, at the first ray of apostolic light, and, with the sudden ripeness of a northern summer, at once covered the whole land. Kings and princes, when not themselves among the ranks of the converted, saw their sons and daughters joining in the train without a murmur. Chiefs, at variance in all else, agreed in meeting beneath the Christian banner; and the proud Druid and Bard laid their superstitions meekly at the foot of the cross ; nor, by a singular blessing of Provi- dence—unexampled, indeed, in the whole history of the church — was there a single drop of blood shed, on account of religion, through the entire course of this mild Christian revolution, by which, in the space of a few years, all Ireland was brought tranquilly under the dominion of the Gospel.* By no methods less gentle and skilful than those which her great Apostle employed, could a triumph so honourable, as well to himself as to his nation of willing converts, have been ac- complished. Landing alone, or with but a few humble followers, on their shores, the circumstances attending his first appear- ance (of which a detailed account shall presently be given) were of a nature strongly to affect the minds of a people of lively and religious imaginations ; and the flame, once caught, found fuel in the very superstitions and abuses which it came to consume. Had any attempt been made to assail, or rudely alter, the ancient ceremonies and symbols of their faith, all that prejudice in favour of old institutions, which is so inherent in the nation, would at once have rallied around their primitive creed ; and the result would, of course, have been wholly dif- ferent. But the same policy by which Christianity did not disdain to win her way in more polished countries, was adopted by the first missionaries in Ireland ; and the outward forms of past error became the vehicle through which new and vital truths were conveyed.f The days devoted, from old times, to * Giraldus Cambrensis has J)een guilty of eithfjr the bigotry or the stupidity of adducing this bloodless triuiajilj of Christia;iity among the Irish, as a charge against that people; — "Pro Christi ecclesia corona martyri nulla. Non igitur inventus est in partibus istis, qui ecclesite surgentis fundamenta sanguinis eflusione cenientaret : non fuit qui fucerit hoc bonum ; non fuit useque ad unum." — Topog. Ilib. dist. iii. cap. 29. t The very same policy was recommended by Pope Gregory to Augustine and his fellow-labourers in England. See his letter to the Abbot Mellitus, in Bede, (lib. i. c. 30.) where he suggests that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed. " Let the iifols that are in them," he says, " be destroyed; let holy water be made, and sprinkled in the .-aid temples; NUNS OF ST. BRIDGET. 177 Pagan festivals, were now transferred to the service of the Christian cause. The feast of Samhin, which had been held annually at the time of the vernal equinox, was found oppor- tunely to coincide with the celebration of Easter; and the fires lighted up by the Pagan Irish, to welcome the summer solstice, were continued afterwards, and even down to the present day, in honour of the eve of St. John. At every step, indeed, the transition to a new faith was smoothed by such coincidences or adoptions. The convert saw in the baptismal font, where he was immersed, the sacred well at which his fathers had worshipped. The Druid ical stone on the "high places" bore, rudely graved upon it, the name of the Redeemer ; and it was in general by the side of those ancient pillar towers — whose origin was even then, per- haps, a mystery — that, in order to share in the solemn feelings which they inspired, the Christian temples arose. With the same view, the Sacred Grove was anew consecrated to religion, and the word Dair, or oak, so often combined with the names of churches in Ireland, sufficiently marks the favourite haunts of the idolatry which they superseded.* In some instances, the accustomed objects of former worship were associated, even more intimately, with the new faith ; and the order of Druidesses, as well as the idolatry which they practised, seemed to be revived, or rather continued, by the Nuns of St. Bridget, in their inextinguishable fire and miraculous oak at Kildare.f let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God ; that the nation, not seeing those temples destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may more willingly resort to the same places they were wont For there is no doubt but that it is impossible to retrench all at once from obdurate minds, because he who endeavours to ascend the highest place, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps." See Hume's remarks on this policy of the first missionaries, vol. i. chap. 1. With similar views, the early Christians selected, in general, for the fes- tivals of their church, such days as had become hallowed to the Pagans by the celebration of some of their religious solemnities. * Thus Dairmagh, now called Durrogh, in the King's County, once the site of a celebrated monastery, signifies the Oak Grove of the Plain, or the Plain of the Oaks. The name of the ancient monastery, Doire-Calgaich, from whence the city of Derry was designated, recalls the memory of the Hill of Oaks, on which it was originally erected ; and the chosen seat of St. Bridget, Kildare, was but the Druid's Cell of Oaks converted into a Christian temple. t See Giraldus, Topog. Hibern. dist. ii. cap. 34, 35, 36. 48. The Tales of Giraldus, on this subject, are thus rendered by a learned but fanciful writer, the author of Nimrod: — "St. Bridget is certainly no other than Vesta, or the deity of the fire-worshippers in a female form. The fire of St. Bridget was originally in the keeping of nine virgins ; but in the time of Giraldus Cambrensis there were twenty, who used to watch alternate nights ; but on the twentieth night, the man whose turn it was merelv to throw on the 178 HISTORY OF ikela:nd. To what extent Christianity had spread, in Ireland, before the mission of St. Patrick, there are no very accurate mean* of judging. The boast of Tertullian, that, in his time, a know- ledge of the Christian faith had reached those parts of the British isles yet unapproached by the Romans, is supposed to imply as well Ireland as the northern regions of Britain* ; nor are there wanting writers, who, placing reliance on the asser- tion of Eusebius, that some of the apostles preached the Gospel in the British isles, suppose St. James the elder to have been the promulgator of the faith among the iTishf, — just as St. Paul, on the same hypothesis, is said to have communicated it'to the Britons. But though unfurnished with any direct evidence as to the religious state of the Irish in their own country, we have a proof how early they began to distinguish themselves, on the continent, as Christian scholars and writers, in the persons of Pelagius, the eminent heresiarch, and his able disciple Celes- tius. That the latter was a Scot, or native of Ireland, is almost universally admitted ; but of Pelagius it is, in general, asserted that he was a Briton, and a monk of Bangor in Wales. There appears little doubt, however, that this statement is erroneous, and that the monastery to which he belonged was that of Ban- gor, or rather Banchor, near Carrickfergus. Two of the most learned, indeed, of all the writers respecting the heresy which bears his name, admit Pelagius, no less than his disciple, to have been a native of Ireland. | wood, crying, " Bridget, watch thine own fire !"— in the morning the wood was found consumed, but the fire unextinguished. Nor, indeed, (saith Gi- raldus) hath it ever been extinguislied during so many ages since that vir- gin's time ; nor, with such piles of fuel as have been there consumed, did it ever leave ashes. The fire was surrounded by a fence, of form circular, like Vesta's temple—' Virgeo orbiculari sepe,'— which no male creature could enter, and escape divine vengeance. An archer of the household of Count Richard jumped over St. Bridget's fence, and went mad; and he would blow in the face of whoever he met, saying, ' Thus did I blow St. Bridget's fire !' Another man put his leg through a gap in the fence, and was withered up."— Vol. ii. * Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita.— iiJ. adv. JttdiEos, cap. 7. t See the authorities collected on this point by Usher, Eccles. Primord. chap. i. xvi. Vincent de Beauvais thus asserts it: — "Nutu Dei Jacobus Hiber- niae oris appulsus verbum Dei pra;dicavit intrepidus, ubi septem discipulos eligisse fertur:'— Speculum Historiale, lib. viii. c. 7. It has been well conjec- tured by Usher that this story has arisen from a confusion of Hibernia with Hiberia ; the latter being one of the names of Spain, which country St. James is said to have visited. X Gamier, in his Dissert, upon Pelagianism; and Vossius, in his Histor. Pelag. The latter says :— " Pelagius professione monachus, natione non Gallus Brito, ut Danieus putavit ; nee Anglo-Britannus, ut scripsit Balseus, sed Scotus."— Lib. i. cap. 3. PELAGIAN DOCTRINES. 179 By few of the early Christian heresiarchs was so deep an impression made on their own times, or such abundant fuel for controversy bequeathed to the future, as by this remarkable man, Pelagius, whose opinions had armed against him all the most powerful theologians of his day, and who yet extorted, even from his adversaries, the praise of integrity and talent The very bitterness with which St, Jerome attacks him, but shows how deeply he felt his power* ; while the eulogies so honourably bestowed upon him by his great opponent, St. Au- gustine, will always be referred to by the lovers of tolerance, as a rare instance of that spirit of fairness and liberality by which the warfare of religious controversy may be softened. f The rank of Celestius, in public repute, though subordinate, of course, to that of his master, was not, in its way, less dis- tinguished. So high was the popular estimate of his talents, that most of the writings circulated under the name of Pelagius, were supposed to have been in reality the production of his disciple's pen. We are told by St. Augustine, indeed, that many of the followers of the heresy chose to style themselves,- after the latter, Celestians ; and St. Jerome, in one of his paroxysms of vituperation, goes so far as to call him " the leader of the whole Pelagian army."]: While yet a youth, and before he had adopted the Pelagian doctrines, Celestius had passed some time in a monastery on the continent, supposed to have been that of St. Martin of Tours, and from thence (a. d. 369) addressed to his parents, in Ireland, three letters, "in the form," as we are told, "of little books," and • full of such piety, " as to make them necessary to all who love God." Among his extant works there is mentioned an epistle " On the Knowledge of Divine Law ;" which, by some, is con- jectured to have been one of those letters addressed by him to his parents. 5 But Vossius has shown, from internal evidence, * Among other reflections on the country of Pelagius, St. Jerome throws in his teeth the Irish flummery :— " Nee recordatur stolidissimus et Scotorum pultibus prtEgravatus."— In Hierem. Prcefat. lib. i. Upon this, Vossius re- marks : — " Nam per Scotorum ptdtibns prmgravatum, non alium inteliigit quam Pelagium natione Scotum." — Lib. i. cap. 3. t The following are a few of the passages, in which this praise, so credit- able to both parties, is conveyed : — " Pelagii, viri, ut audio, sanctit et non parvo profectu Christiani. "—Z?c Peccat. meritis ac remiss, lib. iii. cap. L — *' Eum qui noverunt loquuntur bonum ac praedicandum virum."— 76. cap. 3. And again, " Vir ille tarn egregie Christianus." X " Pelagii licet discipulum tamen magistrum et ductorem oxercitus." — F.pist. ad Ctesiphont. ^ § " Cselestius antequam dogma Pelagianum incurreret, imo adhuc adoles- cens scripsit ad parentes suos de monasterio epistolas in modum libellorum tres, omni Deum desideranti necessarias."— Gic?madi«s, Catal. Illust. Vir. By Dr. O'Connor, this passage of Gennadius has been rather unaccountably 180 HISTORY OF IRELAND. that this could not have been the case ; the epistle in question being, as he says, manifestly tinged with Pelagianism*, and therefore to be referred to a later date. The fact of Celestius thus sending letters to Ireland, with an implied persuasion, of course, that they would be read, affords one of those incidental proofs of the art of writing being then known to the Irish, which, combining with other evidence more direct, can leave but little doubt upon the subject. A country that could produce, indeed, before the middle of the fourth century, two such able and distinguished men as Pelagius and Celestius, could hardly have been a novice, at that time, in civilization, however se- cluded from the rest of Europe she had hitherto remained. From some phrases of St. Jerome, in one of his abusive attacks on Pelagius, importing that the heresy professed by the latter was common to others of his countrymen, it has been fairly concluded that the opinions in question were not confined to these two Irishmen ; but, on the contrary, had even spread to some extent among that people. It is, indeed, probable, that whatever Christians Ireland could boast at this period, were mostly followers of the peculiar tenets of their two celebrated countrymen ; and the fact that Pelagianism had, at some early period, found its way into this country, is proved by a letter from the Roman clergy to those of Ireland, in the year 640, wlierein, adverting to some indications of a growth of heresy, at that time, they pronounce it to be a revival of the old Pela- gian virus.f Already in Britain, where, at the period of which we are treating, Christianity had for more than a century, flourished|, the tenets of Pelagius had been rapidly gaining ground ; and the mission of St. German and Lupus to that country, in the year 429, was for the express purpose of freeing it from the infection of this heresy. Among the persons who accompanied this mission, was the future apostle of Ireland, Patrick, then in his forty-second year. While thus occupied, the attention brought forward, in proof of the early introduction of monastic institutions into Ireland. " Monachorum instituta toto fere siEculo ante S. Patricii adven- tum, invecta fuisse in Hiberniam patet ex supra allatis de Caelestio, qui ab ipsa adolescentia inonasterio se dicavit, ut scribit Genadius." But the mere fact of the Irishman Celestius having been in a monastery on the continent, is assuredly no proof of the introduction of monastic establishments into Ireland." — See JProl. i. Ixxviii. * Manifeste, ntAaytav^ct t Et hoc quoque cognovimus, quod virus Pelagians haereseos apud vos denuo reviviscit. X British bishops had already been present at some continental councils: at that of Aries, in a. d. 314 ; and at the council of Nice, as is shown to be probable, (Antiq. of Churches, chap, ii.) in the year 325. MISSION OF PALLADIUS. 181 of these missionaries would naturally be turned to the state of Christianity in Ireland ; and it was, doubtless, the accounts which they gave of the increasing number of Christians, in that country, as well as of the inroads already made upon them by the Pelagian doctrines, that induced pope Celestine to turn his attention to the wants of the Irish, and t(5 appoint a bishop for the superintendence of tlieir infant church. The person chosen for this mission "to the Scots believing in Christ" (for so it is specified by the chronicler)* was Palladius, a deacon of the Roman church, at whose instance St. German had been sent by the pope to reclaim the erring Britons ; and, whatever preachers of the faith, foreign or native, might have appeared previously in Ireland, it seems certain that, before this period, no hierarchy had been there instituted, but that in Palladius the Irish Christians saw their first bishop. For a short period, success appears to have attended his mission ; and a zealous anti-Pelagian of that day, in his haste to laud the spiritual triumphs of the pope, prematurely an- nounced thUt the new missionary to the British isles, " while endeavouring to keep Britain Catholic, had made Ireland Christian."t The result, however, as regards the latter coun- try, was by no means so prosperous. The few believers Pal- ladius found or succeeded in making during his short stay, could ill protect him against the violence of the numbers who opposed him; and, after some unavailing efforts to obtain a hearing for his doctrine, he was forced to fly from the country, leaving behind him no other memorial of his labours than the adage traditional among the Irish, that " not to Palladius but to Patrick did God grant the conversion of Ireland." This ill-fated missionary did not live to report his failure at Rome ; but being driven by a storm on the coast of North Britain, there died, it is said, at Fordun, in the district of Mearns. Before entering on an account of St. Patrick's mission, a brief sketch of his life, previous to that period, may be deemed requisite. It will be seen that with him, as perhaps with most men who have achieved extraordinary actions, a train of prepa- ration appears to have been laid, from the very outset, for the * " Ad Scotos in Christum credentes ordinatus a Papa Celestino Palladius primus Episcopus mittitur."— Prosper. Chron. Bass, et Antioch. Coss. t Et ordinate Scotis episcopo, dum Romanam insulam studet servare Ca- tholicam, fecit etiam Barbaram Christianam.— Prosper, Lib. contra Collat. cap. 41. This sanguine announcement was issued by Prosper, in a work directed against the semi-Pelagians, when the true result of Palladius's mis- sion had not yet reached him. With respect to the epithet " barbara," here applied to Ireland, it is well known that whatever country did not form a part of the Roman empire, was, from ancient custom, so styled. Vol. I. 16 182 HISTORY OF IRELAND. mighty work he was to accomplish. Respecting his birth-place, there has been much difference of opinion ; the prevailing no- tion being that he was born at Alcluit, now Dunbarton, in North Britain.* It is only, however, by a very forced and false construction of some of the evidence on the subject, that any part of Great Britain can be assigned as the birth-place of the Saint ; and his own Confession, a work of acknowledged genuineness, proves him to have been a native of the old Gal- ilean, or rather Armoric Britain.f The country anciently known by tliis name comprised the wliole of the north-west coasts of Gaul ; and in the territory now called Boulogne, St. Patrick, it appears, was born. That it was on the Armorican coast he had been made captive, in his boyhood, all the writers of his life agree; and as it is allowed also by the same au- thorities that his family was resident there at the time, there arose a difficulty as to the cause of their migration thither from the banks of the Clyde, which the fact, apparent from his own statement, that Armorica was actually the place of his na- tivity disposes of satisfactorily. His family was, as 'he informs us, respectable, his father having held the office of Decurio, or municipal senator; though, as it appears, he afterwards entered into holy orders, and was a deacon. From a passage in the Letter of tiie Saint to Coroticus, it is supposed, and not improbably, that his family may have been of Roman origin ; and tlie opinion that his mother, Conchessa, was a native of some part of the Gauls, is concurred in by all the old Irish writers. The year of his birth has been likewise a subject of much variance and controversy ; but the calculations most to be re- lied upon assign it to a. u. 387, which, according to his own statement of Jiis having been, at the time when he was made captive, sixteen years of age, brings this latter event to the year 403, a period memorable in Irish history, when the mo- * Dr. O'Connor, who was of this opinion, takes also for granted that, as a native of Alcluid, or Diinbarton, St. Patrick ini<{ht have been claimed as Scoto-Iri.sh ; Alcluid liaving heeii, as he asserts, the seat of the Irish kings in Albany. "Alcluid, Riipes Cludensis, hodie Dunbarton, quae fuit regia arx regain Ilibcrnoruni AlbajiiLC." He adds :—" Nat us est itaque S. Patricius inter Ilibernos in pnecipuo Hibornoruni propugnaculo in Albania." Prol. i. xcviii. This surely, however, is incorrect. The city in question— the Rock of Clyde, as it was called— remained in the hands of the British so late as the daj'8 of Bede (1. i. c. 12.) ; and it was, therefore, not for many centuries after the time of St. Patrick that it was taken possession of by the Scots. t Patrem habui Calpornium diaconum, filium quofidam Potiti presbyteri, qui fuit in vico Bonacem TabernitP.: villulam Enon prope habuit, ubi captu- ram AeA'i.— Confess. Doctor Lanigan has shown clearly that the place here mentioned, Bonavem, or Bonaveni Taberniai, was in Armoric Gaul, being the same town as Boulogne-sur-Mer in Picardy.— See Eccles. Ilist. chap. 2. ST. PATRICK. 183 narch Nial of the Nine Hostages, after laying waste the coasts of Great Britain, extended his ravages to the maritime districts of Gaul. On being carried by his captors to Ireland, the young Patrick was purchased, as a slave, by a man named /qo* Milcho, who lived in tliat part of Dalaradia which is now comprised witliin the county of Antrim. The occupation assigned to him was the tending of sheep ; and his lonely ram- bles over tlie mountain and in the forest are described by him- self as having been devoted to constant prayer and thought, and to the nursing of those deep devotional feelings which, even at that time, lie felt strongly stirring within him. The mountain alluded to by him, as the scene of these meditations, is supposed to have been Sliebhmis, as it is now called, in An- trim. At length, after six years of servitude, the desire of escaping from bondage arose in his heart; a voice in his dreams, he says, told him that he " was soon to go to his own country," and that a ship was ready to convey him. Accord- ingly, in the seventh year of his slavery, he betook himself to flight, and, making his way to the south-western coast of Ire- land, was there received, witli some reluctance, on board a merchant vessel, which, after a voyage of three days, landed him on the coast of Gaul.* After indulging, for a time, in the society of liis pa- rents and friends, being naturally desirous of retrieving /^^q' the loss of those years during which he had been left , without instruction, he repaired to the celebrated mo- ^-.^ nastery or college of St. Martinf, near Tours, where he remained four years, and was, it is believed, initiated there in the ecclesiastical state. That his mind dwelt much on re- collections of Ireland, may be concluded from a dream which he represents himself to have had about this time, in which a messenger appeared to him, coming as if from Ireland, and bearing innumerable letters, on one of which were written these words, " The Voice of the Irish." At the same moment, he fancied that he could hear the voices of persons from the wood of Foclat, near the Western Sea, crying out, as if with one voice, " We entreat thee, holy youth, to come and walk * It is said in some of the lives of St. Patrick that there was a law in Ire- land, according to which slaves should become free in the seventh year, and that it was under this law he gained his liberty. The same writers add, that this was conformable to the practice of the "Hebrews— more Hebraeorum. — (Levit. XXV. 40.) See on this point, Dr. Lanigan, chap. iv. note 43. t The monastic institution, says Mabillon, was introduced " in Hiberniam insulam per S, Patricium, S, Martini discipulum." 184 HISTORY OF IRELAKD. Still among us." — "I was greatly affected in my heart," adds the Saint, in describing this dream, " and could read no fur- ther ; I then awoke."* In these natural workings of a warm and pious imagination, described by hunself thus simply, — so unlike the prodigies and miracles with which most of tlie legends of his life abound, — we see what a hold the remem- brance of Ireland had taken of his youthful fancy, and how fondly he already contemplated some holy work in her service. At the time when this vision occurred, St. Patrick was about thirty years old, and it was shortly after, we are told, that he placed himself under the spiritual direction of St, Ger- man of Auxerre, a man of distinguished reputation, -in those times, both as a civilian and an ecclesiastic. From this period, there is no very accurate account of the Saint's studies or transactions, till, in the year 429, we find him accompanying St. German and Lupus, in tlieir expedition to Britain, for the purpose of eradicating from that country the growing errors of Pelagianism. Nine years of this interval he is said to have passed in an island, or islands, of tlie Tuscan Sea; and the conjecture that Lerins was the place of his retreat seems, not- withstanding the slight geographical difficulty, by no means improbable. There had been recently a monastery established in that island, which became afterwards celebrated for the num- ber of holy and learned persons whom it had produced ; nor could the destined apostle have chosen for himself a retreat more calculated to nurse the solemn enthusiasm which such a mission required tlian among the pious and contemplative Soli- taries of the small isle of Lerins. The attention of Rome being at this time directed to the state of Christianity among the Irish, — most probably by the reports on that subject received from the British missionaries, — it was resolved by Celestine to send a bishop to that country, and Palladhis was, as we have seen, the person appointed. The peculiar circumstances which fitted St. Patrick to take part in such a mission, and probably his own expressed wishes to that effect, induced St. German to send him to Rome with recom- * The following is the Saint's description of this dream in his own homely Latin :— Et ibi scilicet vidi in visu, nocte, virum venientem quasi de Hiberi- one, cui nomen Victoricius, cum epistulis innumerabilibus, et dedit mihi unam ex illis, et legi principium epistolte continentem Vox Hiberionacum. Et dum recitabam principium epistolse piitabam ipso momento audire vocem ipsorum qui erant juxta sylvan Focluti, quae est prope mare occidentale. Et sic exclamaverunt quasi ex uno ore, Rogamus te, saucte puer, ut venias el adhuc ambules inter nos. Et valde conpunctus sum corde, et amplius non potui legere : et sic expergefactus sum." ST. PATRICK. 185 raendations to the Holy Father. But, before his arrival, Palladius had departed for Ireland, and the hopeless re- /„?* suit of his mission has already been related. Immedi- ately on the death of this bishop, two or three of his disciples set out to announce the event to his successor St. Patrick, who was then on his way through Gaul. Having had himself con- secrated bishop at Eboria, a town in the north-west of that country, the Saint proceeded on his course to the scene of his labours ; and, resting but a short time in Britain*, arrived in Ireland, as the Irish Annals inform us, in the first year of the pontificate of Sextus the Third. His first landing appears to have been on the shore bf Dublin ; or, as it is described, " the celebrated port /.^o* of the territory of the Evoleni," by which is supposed to have been meant the " portus Eblanorum" of Ptolemy, the present harbour of Dublin. After meeting with a repulse, at this and some other places in Leinster, the Saint, anxious, we are told, to visit the haunts of his youth, to see his old master Milcho, and endeavour to convert him .to the faith, steered his course for East Ulster, and arrived with his companions at a port near Strangford, in the district now called the barony of Locale. Here, on landing and proceeding a short way up the country, they were met by a herdsman, in the service of the lord of the district, who, supposing them to be sea-robbers or pirates, hastened to alarm the whole household. In a moment, the master himself, whose name was Dicho, made his appear- ance, attended by a number of armed followers, and threaten- ing destruction to the intruders. But, on seeing St. Patrick, so much struck was the rude chief with the calm sanctity of his aspect, that the uplifted weapon was suspended, and he at once invited the whole of the party to his dwelling. The im- pression which the looks of the Saint had made, his Christian eloquence but served to deepen and confirm ; and not merely the pagan lord himself, but all his family, became converts. In an humble barn belonging to this chief, which was ever after called Sabhul Padruic, or Patrick's Barn, the Saint cele- brated divine worship ; and we shall find that this spot, conse- * During one of St. Patrick's visits to Britain, he is supposed to have preached in Cornwall. " By persisting in their Druidism," saj-s Borlase, " the Britons of Cornwall drew the attention of St. Patrick this way, who, about the year 432, with twenty companions, halted a little on his way to Ireland on the shores of Cornwall, where he is said to have built a monas- tery. Whether St. German was in Cornwall at this time, I cannot say ; but (according to Usher) he was either in Cornwall or Wales, for St. Patrick is .said, " ad pra3ceptorem suum beatum Germanum divertisse, et apud Britannos in partibus Cornubiae et Cambria? aliquandiu subtitissc."— JSor^rtse, Jinliq. book iv. chap. x. sect. 2. 16* 186 HISTORY OF IRELAND. crated by his first spiritual triumph, continued to the last hiy most favourite and most frequented retreat. Desirous of visiting his former abode, and seeing that moun- tain where he had so often prayed in the time of his bondage, he set out for the residence of his master Milcho, which ap- pears to have been situated in the valley of Arcuil, in that dis- trict of Dalaradia inliabited by the Cruthene, or Irish Picts. Whatever might have been his hope of effecting the conver- sion of his old master, he was doomed to meet with disappoint- ment ; as Milcho, fixed and inveterate in his heathenism, on hearing of the approach of his holy visiter, refused to receive or see him. After remaining some time in Down, to which county he had returned from Dalaradia, St. Patrick prepared, on the ap- proach of Easter, to risk the bold, and as it proved, politic step of celebrating that great Christian festival in the very neigh- bourhood of Tara, where the Princes and States of the whole kingdom were to be about that time assembled. Taking leave of his new friend Dicho, he set sail with his companions, and steering southwards arrived at the harbour, now called Colp, at the mouth of the Boyne. There leaving his boat, he pro- ceeded with his party to the Plain of Breg, in which the an- cient city of Tara was situated. In the course of his journey, a youth of family whom he baptized, and to whom, on account of the kindly qualities of his nature, he gave the name of Benignus, conceived such an affection for him as to insist on being the companion of his way. This enthusiastic youth be- came afterwards one of his most favourite disciples, and, on his death, succeeded him as bishop of Armagh. On their arrival at Slane, the Saint and his companions pitched their tents for the night, and as it was the eve of the festival of Easter, lighted at night-fall tlie paschal fire.* It happened that, on the same evening, the monarch Leogaire and the assembled princes were, according to custom, celebrat- ing the pagan festival of La Bealtinnef ; and as it was a law that no fires should be lighted on that night, till the great pile in the palace of Tara was kindled, the paschal fire of St. Pat- * "According to the ancient, as well as the modern ecclesiastical liturgy, fire was to be struck and lighted up, witli solemn prayers and ceremonies, on Easter Eve, which fire was to be kept burning in the church lamps till tlie eve of Good Friday in the ensuing year." — JUilner^s Inquiry, &c. t " Anciently, their times of repast were for the most part in the evening ; from which custom that solemn feast at which Laogair, King of Ireland, en- tertained all the orders of the kingdom at Tarah, ann. 455, is in the Ulster annals called the Coena Temrre, the Supper of Tarah ; and it is remarkable that from this supper historians have fixed an era for the latter part of the times of that monarch's administration."— Tf^are's Antiquities. ST. PATRICK. 187 rick, on being seen from the heights of Tara, before that of the monarch, excited the wonder of all assembled. To the angry inquiries of Leogaire, demanding who could have dared to violate thus the law, his Magi or Druids are said to have made answer : — " This fire, which has now been kindled before our eyes, unless extinguished this very night, will never be extinguished throughout all time. Moreover, it will tower above all the fires of our ancient rites, and he who lights it will ere long scatter your kingdom."* Surprised and indignant, the monarch instantly dispatched messengers to summon the of- fender to his presence ; the princes seated themselves in a circle upon the grass to receive him ; and, on his arrival, one alone among them. Here, the son of Dego, impressed with reverence by the stranger's appearance, stood up to salute him. That they heard, with complacency, however, his account of the objects of his mission, appears fi:om his preaching at the palace of Tara, on the following day, in the presence of the king and the States-General, and maintaining an argument against the most learned of the Druids, in which the victory was on his side. It is recorded, that the only person who, upon this occasion, rose to welcome him was the arch-poet Dubtach, who became his convert on that very day, and de- voted, thenceforth, his poetical talents to religious subjects alone.f The monarch himself, too, while listening to the words of the apostle, is said to have exclaimed to his surround- ing nobles, "It is better that I should believe than die;" — and, appalled by the awful denouncements of the preacher, to have at once professed himself Christian. There seems little doubt that the king Leogaire, with that spirit of tolerance which then pervaded all ranks, and so sin- gularly smoothed the way to the reception of the Gospel in Ireland, gave full leave to the Saint to promulgate his new * Hie ignis quem videmug, nisi extinctus fuerit hac nocte, non extinguetur in aeturnum ; insuper et onines ignes nostrse consuetudinis super excellet ; et ille qui incendit ilium, regnuni tuum dissipabit.— ProfiMs, 5". Patric. Vita, lib. i. c. 35. t Carmina quce quondam peregit in laudem falsorum deorum jam in usum nieliorum mutans et linguam, poemata clariora composuit in laudem Omni- potentis. — Jocelin. Some writings under the name of this poet are to be found in the Irish collections. "An elegant hymn of his, (says Mr. O'Reilly) addressed to the Almighty, is preserved in the Felire Aenguis, or Account of the Festivals of the Church, written by Angus Ceile-De, in the latter end of the eighth century." There is also in the Book of Rights a very old poem attributed to him, in which he thus asserts the supremacy of his art:— "There is no right of visitation or headship (superiority) over the truly learned poet."— Trans. Iberno-Cclt, Society. 188 HISTORY OF IRELAND. creed to the people, on .condition of his not infringing the laws or peace of the kingdom. But that either himself, or his queen, had enlisted among the converts, there appears strong reason to question. In adducing instances of the great success with which God had blessed his mission, the Saint makes mention of the sons and daughters of men of rank, who, he boasts, had embraced the faith ; but, with respect to the conversion of the king or queen, he maintains a total silence. It has been, in- deed, in the higher regions of society that, from the very com- mencement of Christianity, its light has always encountered the most resisting medium ; and, it is plain, from the narrative of St. Patrick, that, while he found the people everywhere docile listeners, his success with the upper or dominant caste was comparatively slow and limited ; nor does it appear that, go late as the time when he wrote his Confession, the greater part of the kings and princes were yet converted. Among the females however, even of this highest class, the lessons of peace and humility which he inculcated were always hailed with welcome ; and he describes one noble young Scotic lady, whom he had baptized, as "blessed and most beautiful."* To the list of his royal female converts are to be added the sisters Ethnea and Fethlimia, daughters of the king Leogaire ; whom he had the good fortune to meet with, in the course of a journey over the plain of Connaught, under circumstances full of what may be called the poesy of real life. It was natural that the dream of " the Voice of the Irish," by which his imagination had many years before been haunted, should now, in the midst of events so exciting and gratifying, recur vividly to his mind ; and we are told, accordinglyf, that a wish to visit once more the scene of that vision, — to behold the wood, beside the Western Sea, from whence the voices appeared to come, — concurred with other more important ob- jects to induce him to undertake this journey westwards. Resting for the night, on liis way, at a fountain in the neigh- bourhood of the royal residence, Cruachan, himself and his companions had begun, at day-break, to chaunt their morning service, when the two young princesses coming to the foun- tain, at this early hour, to bathe, were surprised by the appear- ance of a group of venerable persons all clothed in white gar- ments and holding books in their hands. On their inquiring who the strangers were, and to what class of beings they be- * Et etiam una benedicta Scotta, genitiva, nobilis, pulcherrima, adulta erat quam ego baptizavi. — Confess . t Jocelin, cap. Iv. ST. PATRICK. 189 - longed, whether celestial, aerial, or terrestrial, St. Patrick avail- ed himself of the opportunity thus furnished of instructing them in the nature of the true God ; and while answering their simple and eager questions as to where the God he wor- shipped dwelt, whether in heaven or on the earth, on moun- tains or in valleys, in the sea or in rivers, contrived to explain to them the leading truths of the Christian religion. Delighted with his discourse, the royal sisters declared their willingness to conform to any course of life that would render them ac- ceptable to such a God as he announced; and, being then baptized by the holy stranger, at the fountain, became in a short time after consecrated virgins of the church.* The Saint had, previously to his leaving Meath, attended the celebration of the Taltine Games, and taken advantage of the vast multitudes there assembled to forward his mighty work of conversion. In the course of this journey, likewise, to Con- naught, he turned aside a little from the direct road, to visit that frightful haunt of cruelty and superstition, the Plain of Slaughter, in the county of Leitrim, where, from time imme- morial, had stood the Druid ical idol Crom-Cruach, called some- times also Cean Groith, or Head of the Sun. This image, to which, as to Moloch of old, young children were offered up in sacrifice, had been an object of worship, we are told, with every successive colony by which the island had been con- quered. For St. Patrick, however, was reserved the glory of destroying both idol and worship ; and a large church was now erected by him in the place where these monstrous rites had been so long solemnized.f His spiritual labours, in the West of Ireland, are all detailed with a fond minuteness by his biographers, and exhibit, with little exception, the very same flow of triumphant success which marked his progress from the beginning. Baptizing multitudes wherever he went, providing churches for the con- gregations thus formed, and ordaining priests from among his disciples, to watch over them, — his only rest from these various cares was during a part of the Lent season, when retiring alone to the heights of Mount Eagle|, or, as it has been since called, * Lives of St. Patrick, Probus, Tripartite, &c. t " When we hear of Churches erected by St. Patrick, very many of which were certainly of much later foundation, we are not to understand such edifices as are so called in our days, but humble buildings made of hurdles or wattles, clay and thatch, according to the ancient fashion of Ireland, and which could be put together in a very short time."— iant^-an, chap. V. note 74. t Cruachan-aichle, since called Cruach PAadruic, (Croagh Patrick, in Mayo) that is, the heap or mountain of St. Patrick. 190 HISTORY OF IRELAND. the Mountain of St. Patrick, he there devoted liimself, for time, to fasting and solitary prayer. While thus occupied, th( various seafow] and birds of prey that would naturally he at tracted to the spot, by the sight of a living creature in so soil- tary a place+, were transformed, by the fancy of the supersti- tious, into flocks of demons which came to tempt and disturl the holy man from his devotions. After this interval of seclu sion, he proceeded northwards to the country then called Tira malgaidli, the modern barony of Tyrawley. He was now in the neighbourhood of the wood of Foclut," near the Ocean, from whence tlie voices of the Irish had called to him in his dream; and, whether good fortune alone was concerned in effecting the accomplishment of the omen, or, as is most likely, the thought that he was specially appointed to this place gave fresh impulse to his zeal, the signal success which actually attended his mission in this district sufficiently justified any reliance lie might have placed upon the dream. Arriving soon after the death of the king of that territory, and at the moment when his seven sons, having just terminated a dispute concerning the succession, were, together with a great multitude of people, collected on tlie occasion, St. Patrick repair- ed to the assembly, and, by his preaching, brought over to the faith of Christ not only the seven princes, including the new king, but also twelve thousand persons more, all of whom he soon after baptized. It is supposed that to these western regions of Ireland the Saint alludes, in his Confession, where lie stated that he had visited remote districts where no missionary had been before ; — an assertion important, as plainly implying that, in the more accessible parts of the country, Christianity had, before his time, been preached and practised. From this period, through the remainder of his truly won- der-working career, the records of his transactions present but little variety ; his visits to Leinster, Ulster, and Munster being but repetitions of the course of success we have been contem- plating, — a continuation of the same ardour, activity, and self- * " Multitudo avium venit circa ilium, ita ut non posset videre faciem cceli ct terra) ac maris propter aves. " Jocelin is the only biographer of St. Patrick that has spoken of the expul- sion by him of serpents and otlier venomous creatures from Ireland. From his book this story made its way into other tracts, and even into some bre^ viaries. Had such a wonderful circumstance really occurred, it would have been recorded in our Annals and other works, long before Jocelin's time." — Lanigan, Ecclesiast. Hist. chap. v. note 108. The learned Colgan, in exposing the weakness of this story, alleges, that in the most ancient documents of Irish history, there is not the least allusion to venomous animals having ever been found in this country. ST. PATRICK. 191 devotion on the part of the missionary himself, and the same intelligence, susceptibility, and teachableness on the part of most of his hearers. Notwithstanding", however, the docile and devotional spirit which he found everywhere, among the lower classes, and the singular forbearance with which, among the highest, even the rejecters of his doctrine tolerated his preaching it, yet that his life was sometimes in danger appears from his own statements ; and an instance or two are mentioned by his biographers, where the peril must have been imminent.* On one of these occa- sions he was indebted for his life to the generosity of his cha- rioteer, Odran ; who, hearing of the intention of a desperate chieftain, named Failge, to attack the Saint when on his way through the King's County, contrived, under the pretence of being fatigued, to induce his master to take the driver's seat, and so, being mistaken for St. Patrick, received the lance of the assassin in his stead. f The dcatli of this charioteer is made more memorable by the remarkable circumstance, that he is the only martyr on record who, in the course of this peaceful crusade in Ireland, fell a victim by the hands of an Irishman. On another occasion, while visiting Locale, tlie scene of his earliest labours, a design was formed against his life by the captain of a band of robbers, which he not only baffled by his intrepidity and presence of mind, but succeeded in converting the repentant bandit into a believer. Full of compunction, this man, whose name was Maccaldus, demanded of St. Patrick what form of penance he ought to undergo for his crimes ; and the nature of the task which the Saint im- posed upon him is highly characteristic of the enterprising cast of his own mind. TJie penitent was to depart from Ireland immediately ; to trust himself, alone, to the waves, in a leathern boat, and taking with him nothing but a coarse garment, land on the first shore to which the wind might bear him, and there devote himself to the service of God. This command was * In his Confession, the Saint makes mention of the sufferings of himself and followers, and of " the precautions he took against giving occasion to a general persecution, using, among other means, that of making presents to the unconverted kings, some of wliom, however, while obstinate themselves, allowed their sons to follow him :— " Interim prismia," he says, "dabam regi- bus proter quod dabam mercedem filliis ipsorum qui mecum ambulant, et nihil comprehenderunt me cum comitibus meis." \ Among the specimens of Irish manuscripts given by Astle, there is one from a tract relating to this event : — " This specimen," says the writer, "is taken from an ancient jnanuscript of two tracts, relating to the old municipal laws of Ireland. The first contains the trial of Enna, brother of Laogarius, chief king of Ireland, for the murder of Oraine, (Odran) chariot-driver of St. Patrick, before Dumpthac, (Dubtach) the king's chief bard, and the sentence passed thereon, about the year 430." 192 HISTORY OF IRELAND. sle oi| obeyed ; and it is added that, wafted by the wind to the Isle Man, Maccaldus found there two holy bishops, by whom he" was most kindly received, and who directed him in his peni- tential works with so much spiritual advantage, that he suc- ceeded them in the bishopric of the island, and became re- nowned for his sanctity. The most active foes St. Patrick had to encounter were to be found naturally among those Magi or Druids, who saw in the system he was introducing the downfall of their own reli- gion and power. An attempt made against his life, shortly before his grand work of conversion in Tyrawley, is said to have originated among that priesthood, and to have been avert- ed only by the interference of one of the convert princes. Among the civil class of the Literati, however, his holy cause found some devoted allies. It has been already seen that the arch-poet Dubtacth became very early a convert ; and we find the Saint, in the course of a journey through Leinster, paying a visit to this bard's residence, in Hy-Kinsellagh, and consult- ing with him upon matters relating to the faith. The arch- poet's disciple, too, Fiech, was here admitted to holy orders by St. Patrick, and, becoming afterwards bishop of Sletty, left be- hind him a name as distinguished for piety as for learning. The event, in consequence of which the Saint addressed his indignant letter to Coroticus, the only authentic writing, be- sides the Confession, we have from his hand, is supposed to have taken place during his stay on the Munster coast, about the year 450.* A British prince, named Coroticus, who, though professing to be a Christian, was not the less, as appears from his conduct, a pirate and persecutor, had landed with a party of armed followers, while St. Patrick was on the coast, and set about plundering a large district in which, on the very day before, the Saint liad baptized and confirmed a vast number of converts.! Having murdered several of these persons, the pirates carried off a considerable number of captives, and then sold them as slaves to the Picts and Scots, who were at that time engaged in their last joint excursion into Britain. A let- * In the chronology of the events of St. Patrick's life, I have throughout followed Dr. Lanigan, than whom, in all respects, there cannot be a more industrious or trustworthy guide. t"De sanguine innocentium Christianorum, quos ego innumeros Deo genui, atque in Christo confirmavi, postera die qua chrisma neophyti in veste Candida flagrabat in fronte ipsorum."— Cow/ess. " We have here, in a few words," says Dr. Lanigan, " an exact description of the ancient discipline, according to which the sacrament of confirmation or chrism used to be administered immediately after baptism by the bishop, in case he were the baptizer or present on the occasion. We see also the white garment of the newly baptized." ST. PATRICK. 193 ter dispatched by the Saint to the marauders, requesting them to restore the baptized captives, and part of the booty, having" been treated by them with contumely, he found himself under the necessity of forthwith issuing the solemn epistle which has come down to us, in which, denouncing Coroticus and his fol- Jowers as robbers and murderers, he, in his capacity of " Bishop established in Ireland," declares them to be excommunicated. Having now preached through all the provinces, and filled the greater part of the island with Christians and with church- es, St. Patrick saw that the fit period was now arrived for the consolidation of the extensive hiera,rchy he had thus construct- ed, by the establishment of a metropolitical see. In selecting the district of Macha for the seat of the primacy, he was influ- enced, doubtless, by the associations connected with that place, as an ancient royal residence, — the celebrated Palace of Ema- nia having stood formerly in the neighbourhood of the eminence upon which Ardmacha, or Armagh, afterwards rose. The time of the -foundation of this see by St. Patrick has been variously stated ; but the opinion of those who place it late in his career, besides being equally borne out by evidence, seems by far the most consonant with reason ; as it is not probable that he would have set about establishing a metropolitical see for all Ireland, until he had visited the various provinces, ascertained the pro- gress of the Gospel in each, and regulated accordingly their ecclesiastical concerns. It may be remarked, that Ware and other writers, who give to this see the designation of archi- episcopal, and style St. Patrick an archbishop, have been guilty of a slight anachronism ; as it was not till the beginning of the eighth century that the title of archbishop was known in Ire- land. It was, indeed, in all countries a term of rather late adoption, — St. Athanasius being, I rather think, the first writer in whose works it is found. The see of Armagh being now established, and the great bulk of the nation won over to the faith, St. Patrick, resting in the midst of the spiritual creation he had called up round him, passed the remainder of his days between Armagh and his favourite retreat, at Sabhul, in the barony of Lecale, — that spot which had witnessed the first dawn of his apostolical ca- reer, and now shared in the calm glories which surrounded its Getting. Among the many obvious fables with which even the best of the ancient records of his life abound, is to be reckoned the account of his journey to Rome, after the foundation of Armagh, with the view of obtaining, as is alleged, from the pope, a confirmation of its metropolitical privileges, and also of procuring a supply of relics. This story, invented, it is Vol. I. 17 194 HISTORY OF IRELAND. plain, to dignify and lend a lustre to some relics shown in later times at Armagh, is wholly at variance with the Saint's writ- ten testimony, which proves him constantly to have remained in Ireland, from the time when he commenced his mission in the barony of Lecale, to the last day of his life. In the docu- ment here referred to, which was written after the foundation of Armagh, he declares expressly that the Lord " had com- manded him to come among the Irish, and to stay with them for the remainder of his life." Among the last proceedings recorded of him, he is said to have held some synods at Armagh, in which canons were de- creed, and ecclesiastical matters regulated. Of the canons attributed to these early Synods, there are some pronounced to be of a much later date, while of others the authenticity has been, by high and critical authority, admitted.* The impression that his death was not far distant, appears to have been strong on the Saint's mind wlien he wrote his Con- fession, the chief object of wliich was, to inform his relatives, and others in foreign nations, of the redeeming change which God, through his ministry, had worked in the minds of the Irish. With this view it was that he wrote his parting com- munication in Latin, tliough fully aware, as he himself acknow- ledges, liow rude and imperfect was his mode of expressing himself in that tongue, from the constant habit he had been in, for so many years, of speaking no language but Irish. In his retreat at Sabhul, the venerable Saint was ^g- * seized with his last illness. Perceiving that death was near at hand, and wishing tliat Armagh, as the seat of his own peculiar see, should be the resting-place of his remains, he set out to reach tliat spot ; but feeling, on his way, some inward warnings, which the fancy of tradition has converted into the voice of an angel, commanding him to return to Sab- hul, as the place appointed for his last hour, he went back to that retreat, and tiiere, about a week after, died, on the 17th of March, a. d. 465, having then reached, according to the most consistent hypothesis on the subject, his seventy-eighth year. No sooner had the news spread throughout Ireland that the great apostle was no more, than the clergy flocked from all quarters to Sabhul, to assist in solemnizing his obsequies ; and as every bishop, or priest, according as he arrived, felt natu- * Several of these canons appear to have been drawn up at a time when Paganism was not yet extinct in Ireland. Thus, among the canons of the eynod of Patrick, Auxilius, and Esserninus, the eighth begins thus,— "Cler- icus si pro gentili in Ecclesiam recipi non licet ;" and in the fourteenth, " Christianus qui . . . more Qentilium. ad aruspicem meaverit." DEATH OF ST. PATRICK. 195 rally anxious to join in honouring the dead by the celebration of the holy mysteries, the rites were continued without inter- ruption through day and night. To psalmody and the chanting of hymns the hours of the night were all devoted ; and so great was the pomp, and the profusion of torches kept constantly burning, that, as those who describe the scene express it, dark- ness was dispelled, and the whole time appeared to be one con- stant day. In the choice of a successor to the see there could be no delay nor difficulty, as the eyes of the Saint himself, and of all who were interested in the appointment, had long been fixed on his disciple Benignus, as the person destined to succeed him. It was remembered that he had, in speaking of this disciple when but a boy, said, in the language rather of prophecy than of appointment, " He will be the heir of my power." Some writers even assert, that the see was resigned by him to Be- nignus soon after the foundation of Armagh. But there appear little grounds for this assertion, and, according to the most con- sistent accounts, Benignus did not become bishop of Armagh till after St. Patrick's death. Besides the natives of Ireland contemporary with our Saint, of whom, in this sketch of his life, some notice has been taken, there were also other distinguished Irishmen, of the same pe- riod, whom it would not be right to pass over in silence. Among the names, next to that of the apostle himself, illustrious, are those of Ailbe, "another Patrick," as he was fondly styled, the pious Declan, and Ibar;,all disciples of St. Patrick, and all memorable, as primitive fathers of the Irish church. To Se- cundinus, the first bishop*, as it is said, who died in Ireland (a. d. 448), is attributed a Latin poem or hymn in honour of St. Patrick, in which the Saint is mentioned as still alive, and of whose authenticity some able critics have seen no reason whatever to doubt, f There is also another hymn, upon the same subject, in the Irish language, said to have been written by Fiech, the disciple of the poet Dubdacht, but which, though very ancient^ is evidently the production of a somewhat later period. While these pious persons were, in ways much more effec- * This bishop was sent, in the year 439, together with two others, to aid St. Patrick in his mission ; as we find thus recorded in the Annals .of Inis- fallen :— " Secundinus et Auxiliarius (Auxilius), et Esserninus mittuntur in auxiliura Patricii, nee tamen tenuerunt apostolatum, nisi Patricius solus." t " I find no reason," sa}'s Dr. Lanigan, " for not considering it a genuine work of Secundinus." The strophes of this hymn, consisting each of four lines, begin with the letters of the alphabet ; the first strophe commencing, " Audite omnes aman- tes Deum ;" and the last, " Zona Domini prtecinctus." 196 HISTORY OF IRELAND. tive than by the composition of such dry, metrical legends, vancing the Christian cause in Ireland, a far loftier flight of sacred song was, at the same time, adventured by an Irish writer abroad, the poet Shiel, or (as his name is Latinised) Sedulius*, who flourished in this centuryf, and, among other writings of acknowledged merit, was the author of a spirited Iambic poem upon the life of Christ, from which the Catholic church has selected some of her most beautiful hymns.f * There has been some controversy respecting our claims to this poet, who, it is alleged, has been confounded with another writer, of the same name, in the ninth century, universally admitted to have been an Irishman. The reader will find the question sifted, with his usual industry, by Bayle (art. Sedulius). Among the numerous authorities cited by Usher, in favour of our claim to this poet, the title prefixed to a work generally attributed to him (Annotations on Paul's Epistles), would seem decisive of the question :— " Sedulii Scoti Hyberniensis in omnes Epistolas Pauli Collectaneum." The name, Sedulius, too, written in Irish Siedhuil, and said to be the same as Shiel, is one peculiar, we are told, to Ireland, no instance of its use being found in any other country. By English scholars, it will, I fear, be thought another strong Irish characteristic of this poet, that he sometimes erred in prosody. " Dictio Sedulii," says Borrichius, " facilis, ingeniosa, numerosa, perspicua, sic satis munda— si excipias prosodica quadara delicta."— Z)mcr- tat. de Poet. In praising the Paschalc Optis of Sedulius, pope Gelasius had described it as written " heroicis versibus ;" but, by an unlucky clerical error, the word " hereticis" was, in the course of time, substituted for "heroicis," which brought our Irish poet into much disgrace at Rome, and led some canonists, it is said, to the wise decision, " Omnia poemata esse heretica." t Not content with the honour of contributing, thus early, so great an or- nament to foreign literature, some of our writers have represented Sedulius as producing his poems in Ireland ; and referred to his classical knowledge as evidence of the 'stale of literature in that country. Thus O'Halloran :— " That poetry was passionately cultivated in our schools, and classical poetry too, I have but to refer to the writings of the famous Sedulius."— Vol. iii. chap. 7. Even Mr. D'Alton has allowed himself to be tempted by his zeal for Ireland into an encouragement of the same delusion. "The treasures of Roman lore," he says, " were profitably spread over the country : the MTitings of Sedulius testify that classic poetry was cultivated at a very early period in Ireland." J The Paschale Opus of Sedulius is in heroic metre, and extended through five books. His Iambic Hymn, which has been unaccountably omitted by Usher, in his Sylloge, commences thus,— " A solis ortus cardine, Ad usque terrse limitem." ''^^ ^^ -^ Library^ 9f Qtmurl*- STATE OF THE SCOTS IN BRITAIN. 197 CHAPTER XL STATE OF THE SCOTS IN BRITAIN— PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. It has been seen, from the letter of St. Patrick to Coroticus, that, so late as the middle of the fifth century, the incursions of the Picts and Scots into the territories of the Britons had not yet been discontinued. About the commencement of the same century Britain had ceased to form a portion ^qq' of the Roman empire ; the separation, according to some opinions, having been voluntary on the part of Britain*, while far more obviously it is to be accounted for by the en- feebled state of the Roman power, which rendered the occupa- tion of so remote a province no longer practicable. How little prepared were the Britons themselves for independence, at this period, appears from the helplessness of their struggle against the aggressions of their neighbours, and the piteous entreaties for aid so often addressed by them to Rome ; while the prompt attention, as far as the resources of the sinking empire would admit, which these appeals generally received, proves the re- luctance with which the connexion was then severed to have been mutual. In consequence of their urgent solicitations to Honorius, that emperor dispatched to the aid of the Britons a single legion, which, for a time, suspended the attacks of their invaders ; but no sooner was this legion withdrawn for the protection of Gaul, than again the Scots and Picts, breaking through the now un- regarded wall of Severus, or else sailing around the ends, car- ried their ravages into the very heart of Britain. Once more, the interference of the Romans succeeded in turning aside this scourge. Ambassadors, sent from the suffering province to' Valentinian, and appearing before him, as is said, with their garments rent, and sand strewed over their headsf, so far ex- cited the emperor's pity, that a last effort was made for them, and a force, under the command of Gallio of Ravenna, dis- patched seasonably to their relief As in all the preceding cases, however, the interposition was but temporary. The Ro- man general, summoned away, with the whole of his force, to repress rebellion in Africa, announced to the Britons that they * Dr. Lingard has followed Gibbon in asserting, on no other authority than a few words of Zosimus, that the Britons at this time vohintarily threw oft* their allegiance. But the force of evidence, as well as of probability, is all opposed to such a supposition. t " Itemque mittuntur queruli Legati, scissis, ut dicitnr, vestibus, oper- tisque sablone capitibus, impetrantes a Romanis auxilia," &:.c.—Oildas. 17* 198 HISTORY OF IRELAND. must thenceforward look to their own defence ; and, from that period, the imperial protection was entirely withdrawn from the island. No sooner had the Romans taken their departure than the work of rapine recommenced ; and, as the historian of these Devastations expresses it, "foul droves of Picts and Scots emerged from out their currachs, just as, when the sun is at his burning height, dark battalions of reptiles are seen to crawl from out their earth-holes."* Both in this writer and in Bede we find the most frightful representations of the state of misery to which the Britains were now reduced by the " anni- versary" visitations of their spoilers.f ^ ^ , From the period of Gallio's command, during which 426* ^^ erected, between the Solway and Tyne, the last and most important of all the Roman walls, we hear no more of tlie sufferings of the Britons till the time when St. Patrick addressed his letter to Coroticus, and when that last great irruption of the Picts and Scots took place, which drove the Britons at length, in their despair, to invoke the perilous protection of the Saxons. It was in the extremity to which they had then found themselves reduced, that, looking again to the Romans, they addressed to yEtius, the popular captain of the day, that memorable letter inscribed " The Groans of the Britons." But the standard of Attila was then advancing to- wards Gaul, and all the force of the empire was summoned to oppose his progress. Rome, prodigal so long of her strength to others, now trembled for her own safety ; and the ravagers of Britain were, accordingly, left to enjoy their prey undis- turbed. By the arrival of the Saxons, the balance of fortune was soon turned the other way; and the Scots and Picts became, in their turn, the vanquished. To the unhappy Britons, however, this success brought but a change of evils; as their treacher- ous allies, having first helped them to expel the Scots and Picts, then made use of the latter, as auxiliaries, to crush and subjugate the Britons. In all these transactions it is to be re- membered, that under the general name of Scots are compre- hended not merely the descendants of the Irish colony, long * " Itaqufi illis ad sua revertentibus, emergunt certatini de Curicis quibus sunt trans Scythicatn vallem vecti, quasi in alto Titane, incalescentesque caumate, de arctissirnis foraminum cavernulis, fusci vermiculorum cunei, tctri Scotoruni Pictorumque greges," &c. — Oilda?. For the purpose of representing his countrymen, in ancient times, as Troglodytes, the reverend antiquary, Ledwich, has not hesitated to separate the simile in this passage from the context, and to produce it as evidence that the Irish at that time lived in earth-holes. t duia anniversarias avide prredas, nullo obsistenlc, trans maria exag- gerabant.— OiWas, c. 14. KING LEOGAIRE. 199 settled in North Britain, but also the native Scots of Ireland themselves, who were equally concerned in most of these ex- peditions ; and who, however contemptuously, as we have seen, Gildas has affected to speak of their currachs, had already fit- ted out two naval armaments sufficiently notorious to be com- memorated by the great poet of Rome's latter days. The share taken by the Irish, in these irruptions into Britain, is noticed frequently both by Gildas and Bede :— "They emerge eagerly," says the former, "from their currachs, in which they have been wafled across the Scytic Valley," — the name anciently given to the sea between Britain and Ireland. " The impudent Irish plunderers," says Bede, " return to their homes, only to come back again shortly."* Of the three great " Devastations" of Britain, recorded by the former of these writers, two had occurred in the reign of the monarch Leogaire, who ruled over Ireland at the time of St. Patrick's mission. How far this prince was concerned in originating, or taking a personal share in any of these expedi- tions, does not appear from the records of his long reign ; and, among the domestic transactions in whicli he was engaged, his war upon the Lagenians, or people of Leinster, to enforce the payment of the odious Boromean tribute, seems alone to be worthy of any notice. Defeated by the troops of this province in a sanguinary action, which v/as called, from the place where it occurred, the Battle of the Ford of the Oaks, Leogaire was himself made prisoner, and regained his freedom only on con- senting to swear, by the Sun and the Wind, that he never would again lay claim to the payment of the tribute. This solemn oath, however, the rapacious monarch did not hesitate to infringe, — his courtly Druids having conveniently absolved him from the obligation ; and, on his death occurring a short time after, it was said that, to punish his false appeal to their divinities, the Sun and the Wind had destroyed him.f This Pagan oath, and his continued commerce with the Druids, to the very year before he died, shows that Leogaire had either * Revertuntur ergo impudentes grassatores Hiberni domus, post non longum tempus reversuri. t Thus recorded in the annals of the Four Masters :— " A. D. 457, anno 29. regni Laogarii filii Nialli Prtelium Vadi Gluercuum gestum a Lageniensibus contra Laogarium filium Nialli. Captus est Laogarius in prselio isto, et ju- ravit jusjurandum Solis et Venti, et Elementorura, Lageniensibus, non ven- turum se contra eos, durante vita, ob intentum istum. "A. D. 458, postquam fuisset 30 annis in Regimine Hiberniae Laogarius filius Nialli Novi-obsidum, occisus est prope Cassiam inter Erin et Alba- nian! (i. e. duos colles qui sunt in regione Faolan), et Sol et Ventus occide- runt eum quia temeravit eos." 200 HISTORY OF IRELAND. at no time become a Christian, or else had relapsed into Pa- ganism.* The fervid eagerness and rapidity with which the new faith had been embraced wore so much the appearance of that sort of enthusiasm which mere novelty often excites, that it would have seemed but in the natural course of affairs had there suc- ceeded a lull to all this excitement, and had such a burst of re- ligious zeal, throughout the great mass of the people, — depri- ved entirely, as it was, of the fuel which persecution always ministers, — subsided speedily into that state of languor, if not of dangerous indifference, in which the uncontested triumph of human desires almost invariably ends. But in this, as in all other respects, the course of the change now worked in the minds of the people of Ireland was peculiar and unprecedented ; and, striking as were their zeal and promptitude in adopting the new faith, the steady fervour with which they now devoted themselves to its doctrines and discipline was even still more remarkable. From this period, indeed, the drama of Irish history begins to assume an entirely different character. In- stead of the furious strife of kings and chieflains forming, as before, its main action and interest, this stormy spectacle gives way to the pure and peaceful triumphs of religion. Illustrious saints, of both sexes, pass in review before our eyes ; — the cowl and the veil eclipse the glory even of the regal crown ; and, instead of the grand and festive halls of Tara and Emania, the lonely cell of the fasting penitent becomes the scene of fame. It is to be recollected, however, that, through all this pic- ture, the hands of ecclesiastics have chiefly guided the pencil ; and, though there can be no doubt that the change effected in the minds and hearts of the people, was, to a great extent, as real as it is wonderful, it was yet by no means either so deep or so general as on the face of these monkish annals it appears. While this peaceful pageant of saints and apostles so promi- nently occupies the foreground, frequent glimpses of scenes of blood are caught dimly in the distance, and the constant appeal to the sword, and the frequent falling of kings suddenly from their thrones, prove the ancient political liabits of the people to have experienced but little change. In the page of the an- nalist, however, all tliis is kept subordinate or thrown into the shade ; and while, for two or three centuries after the introduc- tion of Christianity, the history of tlie Kings of Ireland pre- *The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick statrs that Leocairc was not a sincere believer, and that he was accustomed to say his father Nial liad laid an in- junction on him never to embrace the Christian failli, but to adhere to the gods of his ancestors. See Lanigan, chap. 5. note 5;}. INVASION AND CONQUEST OF SCOTLAND. 201 sents but a meagre list of names, the acts of her missionaries and her saints, and the pious labours of her scholars, afford ma- terials for detail as abundant and minute as they are, in many instances, it must be owned, sterile and uninteresting. The only event of high political importance, which occurs through the whole of this period, took place at the commence- ment of the sixth century, not long after the death of St. Pa- trick ; and this was the establishment, under the sons of Erck, of that Scotic or Irish monarchy in North Britain, which not only extended its sway, in the course of a few centuries, over the whole of the modern Scotland, but transmitted, through the race of the Stuarts, a long succession of monarchs to Great Britain. The colony planted in those regions, by Carbre Rieda, in the middle of the third century, though constantly fed with supplies from the parent stock, the Dalriadians of Antrim, had run frequent risks of extirpation from the superior power of their neighbours and rivals, the Picts. In the year 503, how- - ever, the Dalriadian princes of Ireland, aided by the then all- powerful influence of the Hy-Nial family, were enabled to transplant a new colony into North Britain, which, extending the limits of the former settlement, set up for the first time a regal authority, and became, in less than a century, sufficiently powerful to shake off all dependence upon Ireland.* The ter- ritory possessed by these original Scots appears to have in- cluded, in addition to the Western Isles, the whole of the mountainous district now called Argyleshire ; and from the time of the erection of this Irish sovereignty. North Britain continued, for some centuries, to be divided between two dis- tinct monarchies, the Scotish and the Pictish ; till, at length, in the reign of Keneth Mac-Alpine, afler a long and fierce struggle, the people of the Picts were entirely vanquished, and the Scots left sole masters of the country. The memorable migration of the sons of Erck is marked by the Irish annalists as having occurred twenty years afler the great battle of Ocha, in which Olill Molt, the successor of Leogaure in the monarchy of Ireland, was slain. This battle * The facts of the history of this colony have been thus well summed up by Roy (Military Antiq.) :— " There is incontrovertible authority to join the Irish with the Picts iiL their martial exploits against the Romans, as well from the Latin, as from the ancient British and Saxon, writers. It is clear, not only from all the Scotch history we have of the times, but from Bede, from the most authentic writers for an age or two before and after him, and from the Roman writers, that Scotland, during the Roman domination in Britain, subsisted under two different monarchies, Irish and Pictish." I have given this passage as I find it cited by Dr. O'Connor, having searched in vain for it in the folio edition of Roy's works, 1793. nem igai' 202 HISTORY OF IRELAND. itself, too, constituted an era in Irish history, as the race of thj. Nials, on whose side victory then declared, were, by the fortune" of that day's" combat, rendered masters of all Ireland. The law established in the reign of Tuathal confining the succed|| eion to his own family, and excluding the princes of the oth^l lines from the monarchy, was now wholly set aside ; and the Hy-Nials, taking possession of the supreme government, held it uninterruptedly through a course of more than five hundre years. Of the two kings who succeeded Olill Molt, namely, Lu|^ and Murcertach, the reign of one extended to twenty-five years, and that of the other to twenty-one ; and yet of the forme] reign all that we find recorded is the names of some battlei which signalized its course ; while of the grandson of Ercl nothing further is commemorated than that, in a. d. 534, h fought five battles, and, in the following year, was drowned i . a hogshead of wine.* It is, however, but just to add, that h is represented as a good and pious sovereign, and was the fin of the Irish monarchs who can, with any degree of certaintj be pronounced Christian. At the commencement of the sixth century, Christianity ha* become almost universal throughout Ireland ; and before it close her church could boast of a considerable number of hoi persons, whose fame for sanctity and learning has not bee: confined to their own country, but is still cherished and hel in reverence by the great majority of the Christian work Among these ornaments of a period whose general want a intellectual illumination rendered its few shining lights th more conspicuous, stands pre-eminently the Apostle of th( Western Isles, Columbkill, who was born in the reign of Mui certach, about the year 521, and who, from the great activit and variety of his spiritual enterprises, was so mixed up wit the public transactions of his times, that an accoimt of his lif and acts would be found to include within its range all that most remarkable in the contemporary history of his country. In citing for historical purposes the Lives of Saints, of what ever age or coimtry, considerable caution ought, of course, be observed. But there are writers, and those not among th( highest, who, in the pride of fancied wisdom, affect a contemp for this species of evidence, which is, to say the least of it * This royal event, as appears by tlie fragments on the subject remaininj was commemorated by many of the poets of that period.— See the Anna! of the Four Masters, ad ann. 534. It is supposed, from tlie mention in mos of the Lives of St. Columbanus, of the circumstance of an Irish ship tradin( to Nantes, in the sixth century, that wine was imported into Ireland from that city. CONFORMITY OF THE IRISH CHURCH TO ROME. 203 shallow. Both Montesquieu and Gibbon* knew far better how to appreciate the true value of such works, as sources of his- torical information ; being well aware that, in times when per- sonages renowned for sanctity held such influence over all ranks and classes, and were even controllers of the thoughts and actions of kings, it is often in the private lives of these spirit- ual heroes alone that the true moving springs of the history of their age is to be sought. Previously to entering, however, on any personal details respecting either Columba or any other of those distinguished Irishmen whose zeal contributed so much at this period, not merely in their own country, but throughout all the British Isles, to the general diffusion of Christianity, it may not be irrelevant to inquire briefly into the peculiar nature of the doc- trines which these spiritual successors of our great apostle taught. An attempt has been made, enforced by the learning of the admirable Usher, to prove that the church founded by St. Patrick in Ireland held itself independent of Rome, and, on most of the leading points of Christian doctrine, professed the opinions maintained at present by Protestants. But rarely, even in the warfare of religious controversy, has there been hazarded an assertion so little grounded upon fact. In addition to the original link formed with Rome, from her having ap- pointed the first Irish missionaries, we find in a canon of one of the earliest Synods held in Ireland a clear acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Roman see. Nor was this recogni- tion confined merely to words; as, on the very first serious occasion of controversy which presented itself, — the dispute relative to the time of celebrating Easter, — it was resolved, conformably to the words of this canon, that " the question * " The -ancient legendaries," says Gibbon, " deserve some regard, as they are obliged to connect their fables with the real history of their own times." Montesquieu acknowledges still more strongly the use to be derived from such works :— " duoiqu'on puisse reprocher aux auteurs de ces Vies d'avoir 6t6 quelque- fois un peu trop cr^^dules sur des choses que Dieu a certainement faites, si elles ont 6te dans I'ordre de ses desseins, on ne laisse pas d'en tirer de grandes lumieres sur les nioeurs et les usages de ces temps-la."— Liv. xxx. chap. 2. Sir James Mackintosh follows eloquently in the same track :— " The vast collections of the Lives of Saints often throws light on public events, and opens glimpses into the habits of men in those times ; nor are they wanting in sources of interest, though poetical and moral rather than historical The whole force of this noble attempt to exalt human nature was at this period spent on the Lives of the Saints,— a sort of moral heroes or demigods, without some acquaintance with whom it is hard to comprehend an age when the commemoration of the virtues then most vene- rated, as they were embodied in these holy men, was the principal theme of the genius of Christendom."— Vol. i. chap. 2. See, on the same subject, the remarks of the Benedictines (Hist. Literaire de la France), in speaking of the writers of the seventh century. 204 HISTORY OF IRELAND. should be referred tx) the Head of Cities," and, a deputation being accordingly dispatched to Rome for the purpose, the Roman practice, on this point, was ascertained and adopted. Respecting the nature of the religious doctrines and obser- vances taught by the earliest Christian preachers in Ireland, we have, both in the accounts of their devotional practices and in their writings, the most satisfactory as well as ample inform- ation. That they celebrated mass under the ancient tradi- tional names of the Holy Mysteries of the Eucharist, the Sac- rifice of Salvation*, the Immolation of the Host, is admitted by Usher himself But he might have found language even still stronger employed by them to express the mystery their faith acknowledged in that rite.f The ancient practice of Of- fering up prayers for the deadj, and the belief of a middle state of existence, after this life, upon which that practice is founded, formed also parts of their creed ^ ; though of the locality of the purgatorial fire their notions were, like those of the ancient Fathers, vague and undefined. In an old Life of St. Brendan, who lived in the sixth century, it is stated, *The phrase used by St. Chrysostom, in speaking of the progress of the faith in the British Isles, implies in itself that the belief held in tliose regions respecting the Eucharist was the very same which he himself en- forced in his writings, and which the Catholic church maintains to the pre- sent day. " They have erected churches (says the saint), and Altars of Sa- crifice.'* t Following the belief of the ancient Christian church, as to a Real Pre- sence in the sacrament, they adopted the language also by which this mys- tery was expressed ; and the phrase of, " making the body of Christ" which occurs so frequently in the Liturgies of the primitive Church, is found like- wise in the writings of tJie first Irish Christians. Thus Adamnan, in hig Life of St. Columba, tells of that Saint ordering the bishop, Cronan, " Christi corpus ex more conficere." Lib. i. c. 44. In later Irish writers, numerous passages to the same purport may be found; but, confining mj'self to those only of the earlier period, I shall add but the following strong test' from Sedulius :— Corpus, sanguis, aqua, tria vita? numera nostrse : Fonte renascentes, membris et sanguine Christi Vescimur, atque ideo templum Deitatis habemur; Q,uod servare Deus nos annuat immaculatum, Et faciat tenues tanto Mansore capaces. Carmen Paschale, lib. iv. X Oblationes pro defunctis annua die {acimns.—Tertull. §It is acknowledged by Usher that Requiem masses were among the reli- gious practices of the Irish Christians in those days ; but he denies that they were anything more than " an honourable commemoration of the dead, and a sacrifice of thanksgiving for their salvation." It has been shown clearly, however, that the.se masses were meant to be also, in the strongest sense of the word, propitiatory. In an old Irish missal, found at Bobbio, of which an account has been given in the Rer. Hibern. Script. (Ep. Nunc, cxxxviii.), there is contained a mass for the dead, entitled " Pro Defunctis," in which the following prayer, and others no less Catholic, are to be found :— " Con- cede propitius, ut hJEc sacra oblatio mortuis prosit ad veniam, et vivis pro ficiat ad salutem." DOCTRINES OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 205 " the prayer of the living doth much profit the dead ;" and, among the canons of a very early Irish Synod, there is one entitled "Of the Oblation for the Dead." Of the frequent practice, indeed, of prayer and almsgiving for the relijef of de- parted souls, there are to be found throughout the records of those times abundant proofs. In a tract attributed to Cummian, who lived in the seventh century, and of vi^hose talents and learning we shall hereafter have occasion to speak, propitiatory masses for the dead are mentioned. The habit of invoking and praying to saints was, it is evident, general among the ancient Irish Christians; and a Life of St. Brigid, written, ac- cording to Ware, in the seventh century, concludes with the following words: — "There are two holy virgins in heaven who may undertake my protection, Mary and St. Brigid, on whose patronage let each of us depend.'"'' The penitential discipline established in their monasteries was of the most severe description. The weekly fast-days observed by the whole Irish church were, according to the practice of the primitive times, Wednesdays and Fridays: and the abstinence of the monks, and of the more pious among the laity, was carried to an extreme unknown in later days. The benefit of pilgrimages also was inculcated ; and we find mention occasionally, in the Annals, of princes dying in pil- grimage.f The practice of auricular confession, and their belief in the power of the priest to absolve from sin, is proved by the old penitential canons, and by innumerable passages in the Lives of their Saints.l The only point, indeed, eitJier of doctrine or discipline, — and under this latter head alone the exception falls, — in which the least difference, of any moment, can be detected between the religion professed by the first Irish Christians and that of the Catholics of the present day, is with respect to the mar- * See Lanigan, Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. iii. chap. 20. note 107. t See Tigernach, a. d. CIO, and also 723. In tlie Annals of the Four Mas- ters, A. D. 777, the pili^rimage of a son of the king of Connaught to the Isle of Hyona is recorded. I On this point Usher acknowledges that " they did (no doubt) both pub- licly and privately make confession of their faults," (chap. 5.) and adds, in proof of this fact, what follows :— " One old penitential canon we find laid down in a synod held in this country, about the year of our Lord 450, by St. Patrick, Auxilius, and Isserninus, which is as followeth :— ' A Christian who hath killed a man, or committed fornication, or gone unto a soothsayer, after the manner of the Gentiles, for every of those crimes shall do a year of pen- ance ; when his year of penance is accomplished, he shall come with wit- nesses, and afterward he shall be absolved by the priest.' " Usher contends, however, for their having in so far differed from the belief of the present Catholics, that they did not attribute to the priest any more than a minis- terial power in the remission of sins. Vol. I. 18 206 HISTORY OF IRELAND. ria^e of the clergy, which, as appears from the same sources of evidence that have furnished all the foregoing proofs, was, though certainly not approved of, yet permitted and practised. Besides a number of incidental proofs of this fact, the sixth Canon of the Synod attributed to St. Patrick enjoins that " the clerk's wife shall not walk out without having her head veiled."* The evidence which Usher has adduced to prove, that com- munion in both kinds was permitted to the laity among the Irish, is by no means conclusive or satisfactory! ; — though it would certainly appear, from one of the Canons of the Peni- tential of St. Columbanus|, that, before the introduction of his rule, novices had been admitted to the cup. It is to be remem- bered, however, that any difference of practice, in this respect, has been always considered as a mere point of discipline, and accordingly subject to such alteration as the change of time and circumstances may require. CHAPTER XII. EMINENT RELIGIOUS PERSONS, COLUMBA, COLUMBANUS, BRIGID. Among the signs of the religious enthusiasm of that period, not the least striking is the number of persons, of both sexes, who, in the midst of so many competitors for the palm of holi- ness, became sufficiently eminent to attain the title of Saints. These holy persons are, by our ecclesiastical writers, distin- guished into two classes, the first of which, consisting partly of foreigners and partly of natives, extended down from the coming of St. Patrick to the latter years of Tuathal's reign, about A. D. 542. To this class, which was accounted the ho- * If the torm clerk here he understood to comprise all the meiiihers of the clerical orders, the permission to marry extended also, of course, to priests ; but it is thought by some that the words of the canon apply only to the in- ferior ranks of the clergy. " With respect to our English church (says Dr. Milner), at the end of the sixth century, we gather from St. Gregory's per- mission for the clerks in minor orders to take wives, that this was unlawful for the clergy in holy order.«, namely, for bishops, priests, and deacons, agree- ably to a well-known rule of reasoning, ' Exceptio confirmat regulam ;' and we are justified in inferring the same with respect to the Irish clergy in St. Patrick's time." — Inquiry into certain iiulgar opinions, i^-c. (^c. Letter 14. t He founds his conclusion chiefly on their use of such phrases as " the communion of the Lord's body and blood ;" whereas the Catholics of the pre- sent day, among whom the laity receive the sacrament under one kind only, use the very same language. X Columban. in Pocnitcnt., as I find it thus cited by Ceillier :— " Novi quia indocti et quicunque tales fuerint, ad calicem non accedant." ST. COLUMBA. 207 Jiest, as including in it tlie friends and disciples of St. Patrick, succeeded another series, reaching to the very close of the sixth century ; and to this second class of Saints, Columba, or, as he is more commonly called, Columbkill, belonged. In a country where the pride of blood has been at all times so pre- dominant, it formed no inconsiderable part of this Saint's per- sonal advantages, that he was of royal extraction ; being, by the paternal side, descended from that " father of many kings," Nial, while his mother, Athena, was of an illustrious and princely house of Leinster. We are told of a dream which his mother had, before she was delivered of him, which pre- figures so fancifully the future spread of his spiritual influence and fame, that, though but a dream, it may, perhaps, briefly be mentioned. An Angel, it is said, appeared to her, bringing a veil in his hand, of wonderful beauty, seemingly painted over with a variety of flowers, which, having presented it to her, lie almost instantly again took away, and spreading it out, al- lowed it to fly through the air. On her asking sadly why he had deprived her of this treasure, the Angel answered that it was far too precious to be left with her ; and she then observed it, far and wide, expanding itself over the distant mountains, forests, and plains.* This Saint was born about the year 521, in the barony of Kilmacrcnan ; and liis name, originally Crimthan, was, by rea- son, it is said, of the dove-like simplicity of his character, changed afterwards into Columba. To this was added, in the course of time, the surname of Cille or Kille, making the title by which he was from thenceforth distinguished Columbkill, or Columba of the Churches. Of the different schools where he pursued his studies, the most celebrated was that of Finnian at Clonard. There had already, in the time of St. Patrick, or immediately after, sprung up a number of ecclesiastical semi- naries throughout Ireland; and, besides those of Ailbe, of Ibar, of the poet Fiech, at Sletty, there appears to have been also a * Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, lib. iii. cap. i. Of tbis remarkable piece of l)iography, written by an Irishman in the seventh century, the reader may not dislike to see some specimens. The following is the passage describing this dream :— " Angelus Domini in somnis genetrici venerabilis viri, quadam nocte inter conceptum et partum apparuit, eique quasi quoddam mirte pul- chritudinis pepluin assistens detulit : in quo veluti universorum decorose florum depicti videbantur ; quodque post aliquod breve intervallum, ejus de manibus reposcens, abstulit ; elevansque et expandens, in aere dimisit vacuo. Ilia vero de illo tristificata sublato, sic ad ilium venerandi habitus virum : Cur a me, ait, hoc laetificum tum cito abstrahis pallium ? Ille consequenter ; Idcirco, inquit, quia hoc sagum alicujus est tam magnifici honoris, quod apud te diutius retinere non poteris. His dictis, supra memoratum peplum raulier paulatim a se elongari volando videbat, camporumque latitudinem in majus crescendo excedere, montcsque et saltus majore sui mensura superare." 208 HISTORY OF IRELAND. school at Armagh, established by the apostle himself, and in- trusted, during his lifetime, to the care of his disciple Benig- nus. At the period we have now reached, such institutions had multiplied in every direction ; but by far the most distin- guished of them all, as well for the number as the superior character of its scholars, was the long-renowned seminary of St, Finnian, at Clonard.* Having completed his course of stu- dies under this master, Columba early commenced those labours by which his fame was acquired ; being but in his twenty-fifth year when he founded that monastery called Doire Calgach, near Lough Foyle, from whence the name of the town, or city, of Derry was derived. Not long after, proceeding to the southern parts of the ancient Meath, he erected another mo- nastery, equally famous, on a site then called Dairmagh, or the Plain of the Oaks ; and which had been given, as an offer- ing "to God and St. Columba," by a pious chieftain named Brendan, t But the Saint perceived that it was not in Ireland he could hope to reap the full harvest of his toils. Thwarted as he was, in his spiritual labours, by the eternal feuds of the Irish princes, among whom his own relatives, the Nials of the North and South, were, at all times, the most unmanageable, he resolved to seek elsewhere some more promising field of exertion ; and the condition of the northern Picts in Britain, who were still sunk in all the darkness of Paganism, seemed to present the scene of action his holy ambition desired. | He had in view also, it is plain, the better instruction and guidance of that great body of his countrymen who had now settled in Nortli Britain ; nor was his relationship to the princely house which had founded that new kingdom without some share, it may be presumed, in stimulating his anxiety for its welfare. There is, in some of the various accounts of his life, a story attributing his departure from Ireland to some fierce and revengeful con- duct, on iiis part, towards the monarch Diarmid ; of which he afterwards, it is added, so bitterly repented, as to impose upon himself perpetual exile in penance of the wrong. It has been shown satisfactorily, however, that there are no grounds for this story ; and that though, for some venial and unimportant * In this school of Finnian at Clonard, there are said to have been, at one time, three thousand scholars. " Finianus Abbas de Cluain-eraird, magister Hanctorum Hiberniae, habuit enim in sua schola de Cluain-eraird tria millia sanctorum." — Martyr. Dxivgal, ad 12 Decemb. \ See Camden, 1011., where he is guilty of the double error of confounding Dearmagh with Armagh, and St. Columbanus with St. Columba. X Venit de Hybernia Britanniam prtEdicaturus verbium Dei provinciis Sep- tentrionalium ?icior\im.—Bede. lib. iii. c. 4. • ST. COLUMBA IN SCOTLAND. 209 proceedings, an attempt had been made to excommunicate him before his departure from Ireland, the account of his quarrel with the monarch is but an ill-constructed fable, which, from the internal evidence of its inconsistencies, falls to pieces of itself* Having obtained from his relative, Conal, who was then kmg of the Albanian Scots, a grant of the small ^gg ' island of Hy,. or lona, which was an appendage to the new Scotish kingdom, Columba, in the year 563, together with twelve of his disciples, set sail for that sequestered spot. In the same year, a sanguinary battle was fought in Ireland, be- tween the Nials of the North and the Irish Picts, in which the latter were, with immense slaughter, defeated ; and it is evi- dent, from a passage in Adamnan's Life of Columba, which represents the Saint as conversing with Conal at the time of that battle, that he must have visited the court of the Scotish king soon after his arrival at Hy. One of his first tasks, on entering upon the management of his island, was to expel from thence some Druids who had there established their abode; this secluded island having been early one of the haunts of this priesthood, as the remains of circular temples, and other such monuments, still existing among its ruins, seem to prove. Having erected there a monastery and a church, and arranged such matters as were connected with his establishment, he now directed his attention to the main object of his great Christian enterprise — that of exploring tlie wild regions beyond the Grampian hills, where no missionary before himself had ever yet ventured, and endeavouring to subdue to the mild yoke of the Gospel the liardy race wlio were there entrenched. The territory of the northern Picts, at this period, included all that part of modern Scotland which lies to the north of the great range of the Grampian mountainsf ; and the residence of their king Brude, at the time of Columba's mission, was somewhere on the borders of Loch Ness.]; Hither the courageous Saint first directed his steps ; and the fame of his coming having, no doubt, preceded him, on arriving witli his companions nX the royal castle, he found the gates closed against him. His ex- clusion, however, was but of short duration. By one of those * This lonjT story may be found, in its most abridged shape, in Usher, Do Britann. Eccles. Primord. 902. t Hoc est, eis qui arduis atque horrentibus montium jugis ab Australibus eorum sunt regionibus sequestrati.— ^edc, lib. 3. cap. 4. X Ubi vero munitio ejus, vel urbs regia fuerit, nuUibi satis certo reperio.— Adamnan. He mentions, however, that it was near Loch Ness,—" Nesa) fluminis lacuni." 18* 210 HISTORY OF IRELAND. miracles to which, in the records of that all-believing age, every event in favour of the church is attributed, Columba, advancing, made the sign of the cross upon the gates, and, in- stantly, at the touch of his hand, they flew open.* Apprized of this prodigy, the king came forward, with his whole coun- cil, to give him welcome ; and from thenceforth treated his holy visiter with every mark of reverence. Notwithstanding the efforts made by the Magi — more especially by the king's tutor, Broichan — to prevent the preaching of the missionaries, and uphold the Pagan creed, their opposition proved entirely fruitless; and the conversion of the king himself, which had been early effectedf, was gradually followed, in the course of this and other visits of the Saint, by the propagation of the Christian faith throughout the whole of North Pictland.^: His apostolical labours were next extended to the Western Isles, throughout the wliole of which the enlightening eftects of his presence and influence were felt. Wherever he directed his steps, churches were erected, religious teachers supplied, and holy communities formed. Among the islands which he most favoured with his visits are mentioned Hymba and Ethica^; in the latter of which a monastery had been founded by a priest named Findchan, who incurred the displeasure of the Saint by an act strongly characteristic of those times. Aldus the Black, a prince of the royal blood of the Irish Cruthens or Picts, having murdered, besides other victims, Diermit, the * Alio in tempore, hoc est in prima Sancti fatigatione itineris ad Regem Brudium, casu contigit, ut idem Rex fai^tu relatus regie, sufc munitionis, su- perbe agens, in primo beati adventii viri, nori aperiret portas. Q,uod ut cog- novit homo Dei, cum comitibus, ad valvas portarum accedeus, primum Domi- nicje Crucis imprimens signum, turn doinde manum pulsans contra ostia ponit : quae continuo sponte, retro rctrusis fortiter seris, cum omni celeritate aperta sunt ; quibus statini apertis, Sanctus consequenter cum sociis intrat. — ^damnan, lib. ii. cap. 3. t Thus it is said, in some verses quoted by Usher from an Irish Breviary,— " Reliiiquens patriam caram Hiberniam, Per Christi gratiam venit ad Scotiam ; Per quem idonea vitse priniordia Rex gentis sumpsit Pictinia?." J In an article of the Ed. Review, No. 15. art. 7., it is erroneously said, " St. Columba, who was an Irish Celt, and the Apostle of the Highlands, ia not stated to have used an interpreter, when he addressed the Pictish kings, or when he preached the gospel to vast multitudes of their people." It ap- pears on the contrary from' Adamnanus, that the saint did use an interpreter on some of these occasions,—" per interpretatorem, sancto predicante viro:" and the conclusion that the Picts were not a Celtic people seems not a little confirmed by this circumstance. § It is not known by what names these two islands are called at present. Pinkerton supposes that Ethica may have been the island now named Lewis; but Dr. Lanigan thinks it was no other than Eig, or Egg, an island about thirty-six miles to the north of Hy. ST. COLUMBA IN THE WESTERN ISLES. 211 monarch of Ireland, took refuge in the monastery of Ethica, and was there, notwithstanding these crimes, raised to the priesthood.* He superintended also the spiritual affairs of the Scotish kingdom ; founding there, as elsewhere, religious establish- ments. JVom the mention, too, by his biographer Adamnan, of some Saxon converts at Hy, it seems not improbable that his fame had attracted thither some of those Anglo-Saxons who had now got footing in North Britain ; and that even thus early had commenced the course of Christian kindliness to- wards that people, for which the Irish are so warmly commend- ed by Bede ; — forming a contrast, as it did, to the uncharitable conduct which the same writer complains of in the Britons, who were, he says, guilty of the sin of neglecting to announce the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons, f As, at this time, Augustine and his brother missionaries had not yet arrived in Britain, there can hardly be a doubt that by St. Columba and his com- panions the work of converting the Anglo-Saxons was begun ; and the Christians of that nation, mentioned by Adamnan as among the converts at Hy, were, it is most probable, some of the first-fruits of the Saint's apostolical labours. While en- gaged in his beneficent ministry among the inhabitants of the isles, Columba, more than once, found himself called upon to defend this peaceful people against the inroads of a band of plunderers from the Albanian shores, who, though themselves professing to be Christians, and, some of them, relatives of the Saint, took every opportunity of making incursions upon the Christians of the Isles. | With the same spirit which St. Pat- rick evinced in denouncing the pirate prince Coroticus, Co- lumba pronounced the solemn sentence of excommunication against the chief of these marauders. On the death of Conal, king of the British Scots, in the year 572-3, Aidan, the son of Gauran, succeeded to cr^'oQ the throne ; and it is mentioned as a proof of the gene- * Alio in tempore supra memoratus Presbyter Finchanus, CUristi miles, Aidum cognomento Nigrum, regio genere ortum, Cruthinium gente, de Scotia ad Britanniam subClericatus habitu secum adduxit, ut in suo apudse monaf?- terio per aliquod poregrinaretur annos : qui scilicet Aldus niger valde san- guinarius homo et multorum fuerat trucidator ; qiii et Dermitium filiumCer- buill, totius Scotia3 regnatorem Deo auctorc ordinatum interfecerat. — 9davi- nav, cap. 4. t " To the end that by reason the same nation (the Scots, or Irish) had taiten care willingly and without envy to communicate to the English people the knowledge they have of the true Deity . . . even as, on the contrary, the Britons would not acquaint the English with the knowledge they had of the Christian faith."— £ccicsirts«. Hist. lib. v. cap. 23. X Adamnan, lib. ii. cap. 22. "Ecclesiarum persecutores," the biographer calls them. 21,2 HISTORY OF IRELAND. ral veneration in wliich Columba was then held, as well by sovereigns as by the clergy and the people, that he was the person selected to perform the ceremony of inauguration on the accession of the new king.* Though occupied so zealously with the spiritual interests of North Britain, he did not neglect to inform himself constantly of the state of the religious houses founded by him in Ireland, and even occasionally, we are told, repaired thither in person, when affairs of moment required his presence. An exigence of this nature, highly important in a political point of view, occurred soon after the accession of Aidan to the throne of the British Scots, A claim put forth by this sovereign, as descendant of the ancient princes of Dal- riada, having been contested by the Irish monarch Aldus, it was agreed that the difference between them should be sub- mitted to the states-general of Ireland, convoked at Drumceat ; and the attendance of king Aidan at tliis assembly being indis- pensable, he was accompanied thither by his friend St. Columba. Setting out in a small vessel, attended by a few monks, the Saint and the king directed their course to the north ; and, after encountering a violent storm in the open sea, landed at the mouth of t!ie river which runs into Lough Foyle, and from thence proceeded to Drumceat. They found this national as- sembly, which consisted not only of the kings and nobles, but likewise of the heads of clerical bodies, engaged in a discus- sion, tlie subject of which shows tlie singular tenacity with which old customs and institutions still held their ground among this people, even in the midst of the new light by which they were now sun'oundcd. We have seen how powerful, in the times of Paganism, was the influence of the Bardic or Literary Order ; insomuch that strong measures had been found neces- sary, by some of the early kings, to repress, or at least regu- late, the pretensions of that body. At the time of which we are speaking, the two classes composing this Order, namely, the Fileas, or poets, and the Seanachies, or antiquaries, had * Columba liad been, at first, unwillinp to perform this ceremony ; but an angel, as his l)iographers say, appeared to liim during the night, Iiolding a book called " The Glass IJook of the Ordination of Kings," which Jie put into the hands of the Saint, and ordered him to ordain Aidan king, according to the directions of that book. This Liber Vitreus is supposed to have been so called from having its cover encrusted with glass or crystal. It is rather remarkable, that a learned writer on church antienitentiary labours, as tradition says, of pilgrims to his shrine." — Maccul- loch's Western Isles. t Among the various prophecies attributed to St. Columba, the arrival of the English and their conquest of the country were, it is said, foretold by him. "Then," says Giraldus, "was fulfilled the alleged prophecy of Co- lumba, of Hihernia, who long since foretold that, in this war, there should be so great a slaughter of the inhabitants, that their enemies would swim up to the knees in their blood." {Ilibern. Expu^nat. lib. ii. cap. IG.) There is yet another remarkable passage of this prophecy, which adjourns its ful- filment to a very remote period.—" The Irish are said to have four prophets. Moling, Braccan, Patrick, and Columbkill, whose books, written in the Irish language, are still extant; and speaking of this conquest ^by the English), they all bear witness that in after limes the island of Ireland will be polluted with many conflicts, long strife, and much slaughter. But they all pronounce that the English shall not have a complete victory till but a very little before the day of judgment." " Omues testantur eam crebris conflictibus, longoque certamine nuilta in po.sterum tempora multis cffidibus fteJaturam. Sedvix parum ante diem judicii plenam Anglorum populo victoriam compomittunt." —{lb. cap. 33.) j Usher mentions also another copy of the Gospels, said to have been writ- ten by Columba's own hand, which had been preserved at the monastery founded by that Saint at Durrow. " Inter cujus KcifitjXta Evangeliorum co- dex vetustissimus asservabatur, quern ipsius Columbje fuisse monachi dicti- labant: ex quo, et non minoris antiquitatis altero, eidem Columbae assig- nato(quem in urbe Kells sive Kenlis dicta Midenses sacrum habent) dili- gente cum editione vulgata Lalina collatione facta, in nostros usus varian- tium lectionum binos libellos concinnavimus."— iYcZcs. Primord. 691. § This Kells manuscript is supposed to have been the same now preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, on the margin of which are the following words, written by O'Flaherty, in the year 1677:— "Liber autem hie scriptus est manu ipsius B. Columbi." LIFE AND REIGN OF DIARMID. 217 them by their connexion with the great Saints of those times. Uninteresting, however, as are the events of these reigns, the historian is bound not to pass them wholly in silence, but at least to number the royal links as they pass, however void they may be of lustre or value. To Murkertach, the last oc- ^ ^ cupant of the throne whom we have noticed, succeeded ^^7' Tuathal Maolgarb, great-grandson of Nial the Great, during v/hose reign of eleven years the only events that stand out prominently in his annals, are the death of the aged bishop Moctheus, the last surviving disciple of St. Patrick, and the foundation of Columba's favourite establishment, the monastery of Daire-Calgaich, or Derry. His successor Diarmid's life and reign are somewhat more fertile in events. With the fate common to most Roydamnas, or successors apparent, he had been, throughout the reign of Tuathal, an object ^oq' of jealousy and suspicion ; and was even, for some time, tlirough fear of persecution, obliged to conceal himself among the islets of Lough Rie. It was here, doubtless, that his friend- ship with St. Kieran, the eminent founder of Clonmacnoi*!, commenced ; and either then, or on his accession to the mo- narchy, he made a grant of one of the islands to this Saint, who, building a monastery upon the spot, was soon joined by a numerous company of monks, and called up around him, in those solitudes, the voice of psalmody and prayer. By the same royal patronage, he was enabled, not many years after, to accomplish a still greater design ; for, a site being granted to him, by the monarch, on the western bank of the Shannon*, St. Kieran founded there that great monastery of Clonmacnois, which became in after-times so celebrated for its nine Royal Churches, and all those luxuries of ecclesiastical architecture which gathered around its site.f In the reign of this monarch, the ancient Hall or Court of Tara, in which, for so many centuries, the f-',-. ' Triennial Councils of the nation had been held, saw, for the last time, her kings and nobles assembled within its precincts ; and the cause of the desertion of this long honoured seat of legislation shows to what an enormous height the pow- er of the ecclesiastical order had then risen. Some fugitive criminal, who had fled for sanctuary to the monastery of St. Ruan, having been dragged forcibly from thence to Tara, and there put to death, the holy abbot and his monks cried aloud * Among the lands bestowed for this purpose, were some contiguous to Mount Usneach, which had been formerly occupied by the Druids. t See, for an account of these churches, Ware, vol. i. Vol. I. 19 218 HISTORY OF IRELAND. against the sacrilegious violation ; and proceeding in solemn procession to the Palace, pronounced a curse upon its walls. "From that day," say the annalists, "no king ever sat again at Tara;" and a poet who wrote about that period, while mourning evidently over the fall of this seat of grandeur, ven- tures but to say, " It is not with my will that Teamor is desert- ed."* A striking memorial of the church's triumph on the occasion, was preserved in the name of distinction given to the monasteryt, which was, ever after, in memory of this male- diction, called " The Monastery of the Curses of Ireland." On the death of Diarmid, w}io, after a reign of twen- PSQQ ty-one years, was killed by Aldus, a Dalriadian prince, * ■ surnamed the Black, the crown reverted to the Eugenian branch of tlie northern Nials ; and two brothers, Donald and Fergus, who had fought with success against the Nials of the South, in the great battle of Culdremni, were elevated to the sovereignty. The joint reign of these royal brothers lasted but for a year]:, during which an invasion of the pro- vince of Leinster for the enforcement of the odious tribute, and a furious battle in consequence, on the banks of the Liffey, in which the Lagenians were defeated, marked with the ac- customed track of blood the short term of their copartnership. To these succeeded another pair of associates in the throne, named Boetan and Eochad ; and after them, at an interval of but two years, Anmcrius, or Anmery, a prince, remarkable, it is said, for learning, who, after reigning little more than the same period, was cut off by a violent death ; as was also his successor, Boetan the Second, in the course of less than a year. The prince raised to the sovereignty after this last-named mo- narch was that Adius, of whom we have already spoken, — memorable for the great convention which he held at Drum- ceat, — and whose reign, far more fortunate than the passing pageants which had gone before him, lasted for the long space of six-and-twenty years. To give an account of all the numerous Saints, male and female, whom the fervent zeal of this period quickened into existence and celebrity, would be a task so extensive as to re- quire a distinct historian to itself; and, luckily, this important part of Ireland's history, during her first Christian ages, has * Irish Hymn, attributed to Fiech, a disciple of St. Patrick, but evidently, from this allusion to the desertion of Tara, written at least as late as tlie time of King Diarmid. t Annal. Ulton. ad ann. 5G4, note. J O'Flaherty. The Annals of the Four Masters prolong it to three years. ST. BRIGID. 219 been treated fully, and with the most sifting zeal and industry, by a writer in every respect qualified for such a task, and who has left no part of his ample subject untouched or unexplored.* Referring, therefore, to this learned historian for a detailed ac- count of the early Irish Church, I shall notice such only of its most distinguished ornaments as became popularly known throughout Europe, and regained for the " tSacred Island" of other days, all its ancient fame, under the new Christian de- signation of " the Island of Saints." The institution of female monasteries, or nunneries, such as, in the fourth century, were established abroad by Melania, and other pious women, was introduced into Ireland, towards the close of the fifth century, by St. Brigid ; and so general was the enthusiasm her example excited, that the religious order which she instituted spread its branches through every part of the country. Taking the veil herself at a very early age, when, as we are told, she was clothed in the white garment, and the white veil placed upon her head, she was immediately followed, in this step, by seven or eight other young maidens, who, attaching themselves to her fortunes, formed, at the first, her small religious community.! The pure sanctity of this virgin's life, and the supernatural gifts attributed to her, spread the fame she had acquired more widely every day, and crowds of young women and widows applied for admission into her institution. At first she contented herself with founding es- tablishments for her followers in the respective districts of which they were natives ; and in this task the bishops of the different dioceses appear to have concurred with and assisted her. But the increasing number of those who required her own immediate superintendence rendered it necessary to form some one great establishment, over which she should herself preside ; and the people of Leinster, who claimed to be pecu- liarly entitled to her presence, from the illustrious family to which she belonged having been natives of their province, sent a deputation to her, to entreat that she would fix among them her residence. To this request the Saint assented ; and a liabitation was immediately provided for herself and her sister nuns, which formed the commencement both of her great mo- nastery and of the town or city of Kildare. The name of * Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, by the Rev. John Lanigan, D. D. t The bishop who admitted her into the number of Sacred Virgins, was named Maccaile, or Maccaleus ; and the ceremony is thus described by her biographer, Cogitosus: — " Q,ui (Maccaleus) cffileste intuens desiderum et pudi- citiam, et tantum tastitatis amorem in tali virgine, pallium album et vestem candidam super ipsius venerabile caput imposuit."— Cap. 3. 220 HISTORY OF IRELAND. Kill-dara*f or Cell of the Oak, was given to the monastery, from a very high oak-tree which grew near the spot, and of which the trunk was still remaining in the twelfth century ; — no one daring, as we are told by Giraldus, to touch it with a knife. The extraordinary veneration in which St. Brigid was held, caused such a resort of persons of all ranks to this place — such crowds of penitents, pilgrims, and mendicants — that a new town sprang up rapidly around her, which kept pace with the growing prosperity of the establishment. The necessity of providing spiritual direction, as well for the institution itself, as for the numerous settlers in the new town, led to the ap- pointment of a bishop of Kildare, with the then usual privi- lege of presiding over all the churches and communities be- longing to the order of St. Brigid, throughout the kingdom. Among the eminent persons wlio were in the habit of visit- ing or corresponding with tliis remarkable woman, are men- tioned St. Ailbe, of Emly, one of the fathers of the Irish church, and the Welsh author, Gildas, who is said to have sent to St. Brigid, as a token of his regard, a small bell cast by himself f By one of those violations of chronology not unfrequently hazarded for the purpose of bringing extraordinary personages together, an intimate friendship is supposed to have existed between St. Brigid and St. Patrick, and she is even said to have woven, at the apostle's own request, the shroud in which he was buried. But with this imagined intercourse between the two Saints, the dates of their respective lives are incon- sistent ; and it is but just possible that Brigid might have seen the great apostle of her country, as she was a child of about twelve years old when he died. Among the miracles and gifts by which, no less than by her works of charity and holiness, the fame of St. Brigid and her numerous altars was extended, has always been mentioned, though on the sole authority of Giraldus Cambrensis, that per- petual Fire, at Kildare, over which, through successive ages, * Ilia jam cella Scotice dicitiir Kill-dara, Latine vero sonat Cclla Qncrcus. Q,uercus eniin altissima ibi erat, ciijus stipes adhuc manet.— S. Brigid. Vita. t A veneration for small portable bells, as well as for staves, which had once belonged to holy persons, was, in the time of Giraldus, common both among the laity and clergy. " Campanus baiulas, baculos quoque in supe- riori parte cameratos, auro et argento vel are contectos, aliasque hujusmodi sanctorum reliquias, in magna reverentia tarn HyberniiB et Scotise, quam et Walliffl populus et clerus habere Bolent. "—Itlner. Camb. lib. i. cap. 2. The same writer mentions the Campana Fugitiva of O'Toole, the chieftain of Wicklow ; and we are informed by Colgan (in Triad.) that whenever St. Patrick's portable bell tolled, as a preservative against evil spirits and magi- cians, it was heard from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear, from the Hill of Howth to the western shores of Connemara, " per totam Hiberniam." Sea note on this subject in Hardman's Irish Minstrels, vol. i. ST. BRIGID. 221 tlie Iioly virgins are said to have kept constant watcli ; and which, so late as the time of Giraldus, about six liundred years from the date of Si. Brigid, was, as he tells us, still unex- tinguished. Whether this rite formed any part of the Saint's original institution*, or is to be considered but as an irniovation of later times, it is, at all events, certain that at the time when Kildare was founded, the policy of converting to the purposes of the new faith those ancient ibrms and usages which had so long been made to serve as instruments of error, was very generally acted upon ; and, in the very choice of a site for St. Brigid's monastery, the same principle is manifest; the old venerable oak, already invested with the solemnity of Druidical associations, having, in this, as in most other instances of reli- gious foundation, suggested the selection of the spot where the Christian temple was to rise. Having lived to reap the reward of her self-devotion and zeal, in the perfect success and even ascendency of the insti- tution which she had founded, St. Brigid clewed her mortal course at Kildare, about a. d, 525, four years, it is calculated, after the birth of the great Columbkillf, being herself, at the time of her death, about 74 years of age. The honour of pos- sessing the remains of this holy woman was, for many centuries, contested not only by different parts of Ireland, but likewise by North Britain ; the Irish of Ulster contending strenuously that she had been buried, not at Kildare, but in Down| ; while the Picts as strongly insisted that Abernethy was her resting- place ; and the British Scots, after annexing the Pictish terri- tories to their own, paid the most fervent homage to her sup- posed relics in that city. But in no place, except at Kildare, was her memory cherished with such affectionate reverence as in that seat of all saintly worship, the Western Isles ; where to * Dr. Lanigan rcpols indignantly the notion of liCdwicli and others, that St. Brigid, and her sister nuns of Kildare, were " but a continuation of heathen Druidesses, who preserved from remotest ages an inextinguishable fire." There is, however, an ordinance of Scriptural authority, inSvhich St. Brigid may have found a sanction for her shrines. " The fire upon the altar (of th<; tabernacle) shall he burning in it, and shall not be put nnt."— Leviticus, ch. vi. ver. 12. It was for contemning this inextinguishable fire, and using a profane fire in its stead, that the Levitcs Nadab and Abihu were miraculously put to death. See Dr. Milner's Inquiry, letter 11. t According to other accounts, he was born about 539,—" A date much earlier," says Dr. Lanigan, "than that of Mabillon and others, but much more probable." J The claims of Down to the possession of her remains, as well as of those of St. Patrick and St. Columba, are commemorated in the following couplet, cited by Camden :— " Hi tres in Duno tumulo tumulantur in uno Brigida, Patricius atque Columba pius." 19* 222 HISTORY OF IRELAND. the patronage of St. Brigid most of the churches were dedi- cated: by her name, one of the most solemn oaths of the islanders was sworn ; and the first of February, every year, was held as a festival in her honour.* It has been already observed that the eminent Irish ■^p-Q* Saint, Columbkill, has been often confounded, more especially by foreign writers, with his namesake, Co- lumba, or Columbanus, whose fame, from the theatre of his holy labours having been chiefly France and Italy, has, among the people of the Continent, obscured or rather absorbed within its own light that of the apostle of the Western Isles. The time of the birth of St. Columbanus is placed about forty years later than that of Columbkill, a. d. 559 ; and though not of royal extraction, like his distinguished precursor, he appears to have been of a noble family, and also endowed by nature with what he himself considered to be a perilous gift, personal beauty. In order to escape tlie dangerous allurements of the world, lie withdrew from his native province, Leinster ; and, after some time passed in sacred studies, resolved to devote himself to a monastic life. The monastery of Bangor, in Ulster, already celebrated in Ireland, but by the subsequent career of St Columbanus, rendered famous throughout all Europe, was the retreat chosen by this future antagonist of pontiffs and kings ; and at that school he remained, under the discipline of the pious St. Congall, for many years. At length, longing for a more extended sphere of action, he resolved to betake him- self to some foreign land ; and having, at the desire of the abbot, selected from among his brethren, twelve worthy com- panions, turned his eyes to tlie state of the Gauls, or France, as requiring especially such a mission as he meditated. By the successive irruptions of the northern barbarians into that country, all the elements of civilized life had been dispersed, and a frightful process of demoralization was now rapidly taking place, to which a clergy, indolent and torpid, and often even interested in the success of the spoilers, could oppose but a feeble check.f For a missionary, therefore, like Columbanus, * " From those considerations," says Macpherson, " we have reason to sus- pect that the Western Isles of Scotland were, in some one period or other, during the reign of popery, and perhaps in a great measure appropriated to St. Brigid.— Crit. Dissert. In Gaelic, the name of Brigid is, according to this writer. Bride; and by Hebrides, or Ey-brides, is meant, he says, the Islands of Brigid. t This state of things is acknowledged by the saint's biographer, Jonas :— " Ubi tunc vel ob frequentiam hostium externorum, vel negligentiam prcesu- lum, religionis virtus pene abolita habebatur ; fides tantum remanebat Chris- tiana. Nam poenitentiae medicamentum et mortificationis amor vix vel paucis in illis reperiebatur locis."— S. Columban. Vita. ST. COLUMBANUS. 223 full of courage in the cause of Christ, there could not have been selected a more inviting or productive field of enterprise. Proceeding to the province which has been since called Tranche Comte, one of the first acts of his ministry was to erect a monastery on a spot named Luxeuil, in a thick part of the forest, at the foot of the Vosges. From hence so widely was the fame of his sanctity difflised, and so great the con- course of persons, of all ranks, but more especially, as we are told, of young nobles, who came to profit by his instructions, and devote themselves to a religious life, that he found it necessary to establish a second monastery in the neighbour- hood, to which, on account of the abundance of its springs, he gave the name of Fontaines.* In times, however, when the priest alone could present any effectual countercheck to the soldier, so active and daring a mind as that of the abbot of Luxeuil could not long remain uninvolved in public strife ; and his courageous frankness in reproving the vices of the young Thierry, king of Burgundy, drew upon him the enmity as well of that prince as of the fierce vindictive queen-dowager, Bruenehaut. The details of the scenes and transactions in which, so perilously to his own safety, the Irish Saint was brought into collision with these barbarian potentates, besides that they belong more properly to foreign history, would usurp a space, perhaps, disproportionate to their interest. They will be found worthy, however, of a brief, passing notice, less as history, than as pictures for the imagination, in which the figure of the stem but simple and accomplished missionary stands out to the eye with the more force and dignity from the barbaric glare and pomp of the scenes and personages around him. Thus, on one occasion, w^ien the queen-dowager, seeing him enter the royal courts, brought forth the four illegitimate chil- dren of king Thierry to meet him, the saint emphatically de- " The clergy of the Roman church," says Mr. James, (Hist, of Charlemagne, Introduct.) " thickly spread over every part of Gaul, without excepting the dominions of Aquitaine and Burgundy, had already courted the Franks, even when governed by a heathen monarch ; but now that he professed the same faith with themselves, they spared neither exertions nor intrigues to facili- tate the progress of his conquests." * In speaking of this monastery, the Benedictines say, " Fontaines n'est plus aujourdhui qu'un Prieur6 dependant de Luxeu." On the latter establish- ment they pronounce the following eulogium :— " Les grands hommes qui en sortirent en bon nombre, tant pour gouverner des eglises entieres que de simples monasteres, r6pandirent en tant d'endroits les maximes salutaires de ce sacre desert que plusieurs de nos provinces pariirent avoir chang6 de face. Fit a qui doit revenir la principale gloire de tous ces avantages, sinon a leur premier Institeur le B. Columban ?" 224 HISTORY OF IRELAND. manded what they wanted. " They are the king's children," answered Brunehaut, " and are come to ask your blessing." — "These children," replied Columbanus, "will never reign: they are the offspring of debauchery." Such insulting oppo- sition to her designs for her grandchildren roused all the rage of this Jezebel, and orders were issued withdrawing some pri- vileges which the saint's monasteries had hitherto enjoyed. For the purpose of remonstrating against this wrong, he sought the palace of the king; and, while waiting the royal audience, rich viands and wines were served up for his refreshment. But the saint sternly refused to partake of them, saying, " It is written, ' the Most High rejects the gifts of the impious ;' nor is it fitting that the mouths of the servants of God should be defiled with the viands of one who inflicts on them such indig- nities." Another scene of the same description occurred subsequently at Luxeuil. The monastic Rule introduced into France by Columbanus, though afterwards incorporated, or rather con- founded with that of St. Benedict*, was derived originally from the discipline established at the monastery of Bangor, in Ire- land ; and one of the regulations most objected to, in the sys- tem followed both at Luxeuil and Fontaines, was that by which access to the interior of these monasteries was restricted. On this point, as on many others, an attempt was made, by the re- vengeful Brunehaut, to excite a persecution against the saint ; and the king, envenomed by her representations, was induced to join in her plans. Resolved to try the right of entrance in person, he proceeded, accompanied by a train of nobles, to the monastery ; and finding Columbanus himself at the gate, said, as he forced his way in, " If you desire to derive any benefit from our bounty, these places must be tlirown open to every comer." He had already got as far as the Refectory, when, with a courage worthy of a St. Ambrose, Columbanus thus addressed him : — " If you endeavour to violate the disci- pline here established, know that I dispense with your pre- sents, and with every aid that it is in your power to lend ; and, if you now come hither to disturb the monasteries of the ser- vants of God, I tell you that your kingdom shall be destroyed, and with it all your royal race." The king, terrified, it is said, by this denunciation, immediately withdrew. * See, for several instances in which the two rules are thus confounded, Usher's Ecclesiar. Primord. 1050. " Non quod una eademque esset utriusque Regula ; sed quod Columbani sectatores, majoris profectus ergo, duas illas celeberrimas asceticae vitac normas conjunxissent, qua? mediis hisce tempori- bus in Italia, Gallia, et Germania sola) enitebant et apparebant."— ITsser. ST. COLUMBANUS. 225 A speech attributed to the Burgundian monarcli, on this oc- casion, betrays no want either of tolerance or of the good sense from which that virtue springs. " I perceive you hope," said he to Columbanus, " that I shall give you the crown of martyr- dom ; but I am not so unwise as to commit so heinous a crime. As your system, however, differs from that of all other times, it is but right that you should return to the place from whence you came." Such a suggestion, from royal lips, was a com- mand ; but the noble Scot was not so easily to be separated either from the companions who had followed his fortunes from home, or those friendships he had formed in a strange land. " If they would have me depart," said he, " they must drag me from the cloister by force :" — and to these violent means it was found necessary, at last, to have recourse ; a party of soldiers having been ordered by his royal persecutors to proceed to Luxeuil, and drive him from the monastery. The whole of the brotherhood expressed their readiness to follow their abbot to any part of tlie world ; but none were allowed to accompany him except his own countrymen, and such few Britons as had attached themselves to the community. A corps of guards was sent to escort them on their route towards ^■,^* Ireland, and it was to the commander of this escort that, on their arrival at Auxerre, Columbanus pronounced that terrible prediction, as it has been called, of the union of all the crowns of France on the single head of Clotaire : — " Remem- ber what I now tell you," said the intrepid monk ; " that very Clotaire whom ye now despise will, in three years' time, be your master." On the arrival of the saint and his companions at Nantes, where it was meant to embark them for Ireland, a fortunate accident occurred to prevent the voyage ; and he was still re- served for those further toils in foreign lands to which he had felt himself called. Being now free to pursue his own course, he visited successively the courts of Clotaire and Theodobert, by both of whom he was received with marked distinction, and even consulted on matters vital to the interests of his kingdom by Clotaire. After an active course of missionary labours throughout various parts of France and Germany, the saint, fearful of again falling into the hands of his persecutors, Brune- haut and Thierry, whose powers of mischief their late suc- cesses had much strengthened, resolved to pass with his faithful companions into Italy ; and, arriving at Milan, at the court of Agilulph, king of the Lombards, received from that sovereign and his distinguished queen, Theodelinda, the most cordial attentions. 226 HISTORY OF IRELAND. It is supposed to have been during his stay at Milan that Columbanus addressed that spirited letter to Boniface IV., re- specting the question of the Three Chapters, in which, distin- guishing between the Chair of Rome and the individual who may, for the moment, occupy it, he shows how compatible may be the most profound and implicit reverence towards the papa- cy, with a tone of stern and uncompromising reprehension towards the pope. The decision of the Fifth General Council, held in the year 553, which condemned the writings known by the name of the Three Chapters, as heterodox, had met with considerable opposition from many of the Western bishops ; and those of Histria and Liguria were the most obstinate in their schism. The queen Theodelinda, who had so much dis- tinguished herself in the earlier part of her reign by the vigour with which she had freed her kingdom from the inroads of Arianism, had, not many yeaVs before the arrival of Columba- nus at Milan, awakened the alarm of the Roman court by treatmg with marked favour and encouragement the schismatic bishops of Histria ; and it was only by a course of skilful ma- nagement that St. Gregory averted the danger, or succeeded in drawing back this princess to her former union with the church. It would appear, however, that, after the death of that great pope, the Lombard court had again lallen off into schism ; — for it was confessedly at the strong instance of Agi- lulpli himself, that Columbanus addressed his expostulatory letter to pope Boniface* ; and the views which he takes of the question in that remarkable document, are, for tlie most part, those of the schismatics or defenders of the Three Chapters. Setting aside, however, all consideration of the saint's ortho- doxy on this pointf, his letter cannot but be allowed the praise of unshrinking manliness and vigour. Addressing Boniface himself in no very complaisant terms, he speaks of his prede- * Among other passages, to this purport, in his letter, is the following :— " A rege cogor ut sigillatini suggeram tuis piis auribus sui negotium doloris. Dolor namque suus est schisma populi pro regina, pro filio, forte et pro se ipso." t The Benedictines thus account for the part which he took on this ques- tion: — " St. Coluniban, au rcste, ne parle de la sorte dans cette lettre que parcequ'il 6tait mal instruit de la grande aflaire des Trois Chapitres ; et qu'il avait 6t6 sans doute prevenu a ce sujet par Agilulfe, qui s'en etait declare le fauteur, et peut-etre par quelques uns des schismaliques de Lombardie." — Hist. Liu. de la France, torn. iv. A letter of Pope Gregory, on the subject of this now-forgotten controversy, lias been erroneously supposed to have been addressed to the Irish : — " Grego- rius universis Episcopis ad Hiberniam," as the epistle is headed in some old editions of Gregory's works. But it is plain that " Hiberniam" has been sub- stituted, by mistake, for " Histriam," in which latter country the schism on this point chiefly raged. See Dr. Lanigan, chap. 13, note 57. ST. COLUMBANUS. 227 cesser, pope Vigilius, with bitter and, in some respects, de- served reproach; declaring" that pope to have been the prime mover of all the scandal that had occurred * With national warmth, too, he boldly vindicates the perfect orthodoxy of his fellow-countrymen, the Irish, assuring Boniface that they had never yet swerved from the apostolic doctrines delivered to them by Rome ; and that there had never been among them any heretics, Jews, or schismatics.f Having received permission from king Agilulph to fix himself in whatever part of the Lombard dominions he ^i e* should think fit, Columbanus selected a retired spot amidst the Apennines ; and, founding there the monastery of Bobbio, passed in that retreat the brief remainder of his days ; dying on the 21st of November, a. d. 6154 The various countries and places with which the name of this great saint is connected, have multiplied his lasting titles to fame. While Ireland boasts of his birth, and of having sent forth, before the close of the sixth century, so accomplished a writer from her schools, France remembers him by her ancient abbeys of Luxeuil and Fontaines ; and his fame in Italy still lives, not only in the cherished relics at Bobbio, — in the coffin, the chalice, the holly staff of the founder, and the strange sight of an Irish missal in a foreign land^, — but in the yet fresher and more every-day remembrance bestowed upon his name by its association with the beautifully situated town of San Co- limnbano, in the territory of Lodi. The writings of this eminent man that have come down to us display an extensive and varied acquaintance, not merely * Vigila, quia forte non bene vigilavit Vigilius, quern caput scandal! ipsi clamant. t Nullus hacreticus, nullus Judieus, nullus schismaticus fuit : sed fides catho- Jica, sicut a vobis primum, sanctorum scilicet apostolorum successoribus, tradita est, inconcussa tenetur. J Among the poetical remains of Columbanus are some verses, of no incon- siderable merit, in which he mentions his having then reached the years of an eighteenth Olympiad. The poem is addressed to his friend Fedolius, and concludes as follows : — " Htec tibi dictaram morbis oppressus acerbis Corpore quos fragili patior, tristique senecta ! Nam dum prsRcipiti labuntur tempora cursu, Nunc ad Olympiadis ter senos venimus annos. Omnia pra;tereunt, fugit irreparabile tempus. Vive, vale ItEtus, tristisque memento senectse." § Dr. O'Connor supposes this missal to have been brought from Luxeuil to" Bobbio by some followers of St. Columbanus :—" Ad horum vagantium (episcoporum) usum, codicem de quo agimus exaratum fuisse vel inde patet, quod fuerit Misale portabile, quod allatum fuerit seculo viimo, ex Hiberno- rum monasterio Luxoviense in Gallia, ad Hibernorum monasterium Bobiense iu Alpibus Cottiis— £p. JSTunc. 228 HISTORY OF Ireland. with ecclesiastical, but with classical literature. From a pas- sage in his letter to Boniface, it appears that he was acquaint- ed both with the Greek and Hebrew languages ; and when it is recollected that he did not leave Ireland till he was nearly fifty years of age, and that his life afterwards was one of con- stant activity and adventure, the conclusion is obvious, that all this knowledge of elegant literature must have been acquired in the schools of his own country. Such a result from a purely Irish education, in the middle of the sixth century, is, it must be owned, not a little remarkable.* Among his extant works are some Latin poems, which, though not admissible, of course, to the honours of comparison with any of the writings of a classic age, shine out in this twilight period of Latin literature with no ordinary distinction.! Though wanting the free and fluent versification of his contemporary Fortunatus, he displays more energy both of thought and style ; and, in the becoming gravity of his subjects, is distinguished honourably from the episcopal poet.]: In his prose writings, the style of Columba- nus is somewhat stiff and inflated ; more especially in the let- ters addressed by him to high dignitaries of the church, where the effort to elevate and give force to his diction is often too visible to be effective. In the moral instructions, however, written for his monks, the tone both of style and thought is, for the most part, easy and unpretending. * La Luraiere que S. Columban r6pandit par son scavoir et sa doctrine dans tous leslieux ou il se montra I'a fait comparer par'un 6crivain du meme sidcle au soleil dans sa course de I'orient a I'occident. li continua, apr§s sa mort, de briller dans plusieurs disciples qu'il avait form6s aux lettres et a la pi6t6." — Hist. Litt. de la Prance. The same learned writers, in speaking of the letters of St. Columbanus still extant, say,—" On a peu de monuments des vi. et vii. siecles ou Ton trouve plus d'erudition eccl6siastique qu'il y en a dans les cinque lettres dont on vient de rendre compte." t " On voit effect! vement par la lecture de son poeme a Fedolius en par- ticulier, qu'il possedait I'histoire et la fable. Cluoique sa versification soil bien 6loignee de la perfection de celle des anciens, elle ne laisse pas nean- moins d'avoir son merite ; et Ton peut assurer qu'il y a peu de poetes de son temps qui aient mieux r6ussi a faire des vers."— Hist. Litt, ^c, par des Reli- gieux Benedictine. X Those who are at all acquainted with the verses of this bishop, written, most of them, " inter pocula,"— as he himself avows, in his Dedicatory Epistle to Pope Gregory,— will be inclined to agree that it was not difficult to surpass him in decorum. DISPUTES ON THE PASCHAL QUESTION. 229 CHAPTER XIII. DISPUTES RESPECTING THE PASCHAL COMPUTATION. — LEARNED IRISH MISSIONARIES OF THE SEVENTH, EIGHTH, AND NINTH CENTURIES. On the question respecting the time of keeping Easter, which, about the beginning' of the seventh century, produced such a contest between the British and Irish clergy on one side, and the church of Rome and her new missionaries in Bri- tain upon the other, some letters were addressed by Columba- nus to the Gallican bishops and the pope ; in which, defending the Paschai system, as it had been always observed by his countrymen, he requests " to be allowed to follow the tradition of his elders, in so far as it is not contrary to faith." Though upon a point by no means essential as regarded either faith or discipline, yet so eagerly was this controversy entered into by the learned Irish of that day, and with so much of that attach- ment to old laws and usages which has at all periods distin- guished them, that a brief account of the origin and nature of the dispute forms a necessary part of the history of those times. Very early in the annals of the Christian church, a differ- ence of opinion with respect to the time of celebrating Easter had arisen ; and it was not till the great Council of Nice, a. d. 325, had prescribed a rule by which the day of this festival was to be fixed, that, throughout the Asiatic and Western churches, a uniformity of practice in the time of celebrating it was observed. Owing to the difference, however, of the cycles, used by different churches, in making their calcula- tions, it was soon found, that to preserve this desired uniform- ity would be a matter of much difficulty. By the decree of the Council of Nice it was fixed, that the Paschal festival should be held on the Sunday next after the fourteenth day of the first lunar month. In determining this time, however, the church of Rome and the church of Alexandria differed mate- rially; the former continuing to compute by the old Jewish cycle of eighty-four years, while the latter substituted the cycle of nineteen years, as corrected by Eusebius ; and the consequence was a difference, sometimes of nearly a month, between the Alexandrian and Roman calculations. When St. Patrick came on his mission to Ireland, he intro- duced the same method of Paschal computation, namely, by the cycle of eighty-four years, which was then practised at Vol. I. 20 230 HISTORY OF IRELAND. Rome, and which the apostle taught as he had learned it in Gaul from Sulpicius Severus, by whom a change only of the mode of reckoning the days of the moon was introduced into it. To this method the Irish as well as the British churches continued to adhere, until subsequently to the arrival of Au- gustine upon his mission to Britain. In the mean tune, the Romans, having in vain endeavoured, by conference and con- cession, to adjust the differences between the Alexandrian cal- culations and their own, thought it advisable, for the sake of peace, to try a new method ; and the cycle of Dionysius Exi- guus, framed about 525, being in agreement with the Alexan- drian method and rules, was adopted by them about the middle of the sixth century. From the little communication that took place between the churches of the British Isles and Rome — owing to the troubled state of the intervening nations, and the occupation of the coasts of Britain by the Saxons — nothing was known in these countries of the a(k:)ption of a new cycle by Rome; and, ac- cordingly, when Augustine and his brethren arrived, they found both the British and the Irish in perfect ignorance of the reformation which had, in the interim, been made, and computing their Easter by tlie old cycle of eighty-four years, as formerly practised at Rome. In one particular alone, the change introduced by Sulpicius, did the Irish church — to which my remarks shall hcncelbrward be confined — differ from the system originally pursued by the Romans ; and this differr^nce, whicli was, in reality, rather a correction of the old Roman cycle than a departure from it*, consisted in tlieir admission of the fourteenth day of the month, as fit for the celebration of Easter, if falling on a Sunday. The fourteenth day had long been in disrepute throughout Christendom, both as being the day on which the Jews always celebrate their Pasch, and as having been also the time chosen for that festival by the Quar- todeciman heretics. But there was this material difference between their practice and that of the Irish, that, while the Jews and Asiatic heretics celebrated Easter always on the fourteenth day of the moon, let it fall on whatever day of the week it might, the Irish never held that festival on the four- teenth, unless it were a Sunday. The Roman missionaries, * Usher thus explains this correction :— " Q,uum autem Sulpitius Severus bidui ilhim inter Cycli Alexandrini et Romani neomenias observavisset dis- crepantiam, vidissetque Romanis decimamnextam Junam numeratam quae Alexandrinis, coelo etiam demonstrante (uti ex Cyrillo retulimus) erat tan- tum decimaquarta, hunc Romani calculi errorem ita emendandum censuit, ut non jam amplius a xvi. ad xxii., sed a xiv. luna ad xx. ox antique illo anno- rum 84 laterculo Dominica? Paschales oxcerperentur. SYNOD AT CAMPO-LENE. 231 however, chose to keep this essential difference out of sight ; and unjustly confounding the Easter of the Irish with that of the Judaising Quartodecimans, involved in one common charge of heresy all who still adhered to the old Roman rule.* With their usual fondness for ancient usages, the Irish persisted in following the former rule ; and, in the spirit ^Xq * with which Columbanus, as we have seen, took up the question against the Galilean bishops, he faithfully represented and anticipated the feelings of his fellow-countrymen. The first we hear, however, of the dispute, in Ireland, occurs on the occasion of a letter addressed, in 609, by Laurence, the successor of Augustine and his brother missionaries, to the Irish bishops or abbots. In this Exhortatory Epistle, as Bede styles it, Laurence expresses the disappointment felt by him- self and his fellow bishops on finding that the Scots, equally with the Britons, had departed from the universal custom of the church. The warmth with which the dispute was, at this time, entered into by some of the clergy of Ireland, appears, from a circumstance mentioned in this letter, of an Irish bishop, Dagan, who, on visiting tlie Roman missionaries, re- fused not only to eat in company with them, but even under the same roof From this period the question seems to have been left open for more than twenty years : some few among £>o^ * the clergy of Ireland being not unwilling, as it seems, to adopt the new Roman discipline ; while others thought it sufficient to conform so far to Rome, as to substitute the 16th day of the moon, in their Paschal Canon, for the 14th ; and the great bulk of the clergy and people continued attached to their old traditional mode. At length, the attention of the Roman See was, in the year 630, drawn to the dispute ; and a letter was addressed by Honorius to the nation of the Scots, in which he earnestly exhorts them " not to consider their own small number, placed in the utmost borders of the earth, as wiser than all the ancient and modern Churches of Christ throughout the world ; nor to continue to celebrate an Easter contrary to the Paschal calculation and to the synodal decrees of all the bishops upon earth." In consequence of this ad- monitory letter, a Synod was held in Campo-lene, near Old * Thus, in the letter of the clergy of Rome, cited by Bede (1. ii. c. 19.),— " Rc[teriinus quosdam provinciae vestrae, contra orthodoxam fidem novam ex veteri haeresim renovare conantes, Pascha nostrum in quo immolatus est Christus nebulosa caligine refutantes, et quartodecima luna cum Hebrajis celebrare nitentes." Either ignorantly or wilfully, Dr. Ledwich has fallen into the same misrepresentation, and, unmindful of the important difference above stated, accuses the Irish church, at tliis period, of quartodecimanism. 232 HISTORY OF IRELAND. Leighlin, where it was agreed, after some strenuous opposition from St. Fintan Munnu, of Taghmon, that Easter should, m future, be celebrated at the same time with the universal church. This decree, however, having been rendered abortive by some subsequent intrigue, it was resolved by the elders of the church, that, in pursuance of an ancient canon, by which it was directed that every important ecclesiastical affair should be referred to the Head of Cities, some wise and humble per- sons should be, on the present occasion, sent to Rome, "as children to their mother." A deputation was accordingly dis- patched to that city, who, on their return within three years after, declared that they had seen, in the see of St. Peter, ^gg ' the Greek, the Hebrew, the Scythian, and the Egyp- tian, all celebrating the same Easter Day, in common with the whole catholic world, and differing from that of the Irish by an entire month.* In consequence of this report of the deputies, which must have been received about the year 633, the new Roman cycle and rules were, from that period, universally adopted throughout the southern division of Ire- land. However disproportioned to the amount of discussion which it occasioned was the real importance of the point of discipline now at issue, the effects of the controversy, in as far as it pro- moted scientific inquiry, and afforded a stimulant to the wits of the disputants, on both sides, could not be otherwise than highly favourable to the advancement of the public mind. The reference to the usages of other countries to which it ac- customed the Irish scholars tended, in itself, to enlarge the sphere of their observation and proportionally liberalize their views ; nor was it possible to engage in the discussion of a question so closely connected both with astronomy and arith- metic, without some proficiency in those branches of know- ledge by which alone it could be properly sifted or judged. Accordingly, while, on one side of the dispute, St. Columba- nus supported eloquently the cause of his countrymen, abroad, adducing, in defence of their practice, no less learned authority than that of Anatolius, bishop of Laodicea ; at home, another ingenious Irishman, St. Cummian, still more versed in the * " Misimus quos novimus sapientes et humiles esse, velut natos ad ma- trem ; et prosperurn iter in voluntate Dei habentes, et ad Romam urbein aliqui ex eis venientes, tertio anno ad nos usque pervenerunt ; et sic omnia viderunt sicut audierunt : sed et valde certiora, utpote visa quam audita in- venerunt ; et in uno hospitio cum Graeco et Hebrseo, Scytha et ^gyptiaco, in Ecclesia sancti Petri simul in Pasclia (in quo mense integro disjuncti sumus) fuerunt." — Epist. Cummian. Hibern. ad Segienum Huensem, Mhat. de Contro- vers. Paschal. See Usher's Vet. Epist. Hibernic. Syllog. DISPUTES RESPECTING EASTER. 233 studies connected with this subject, produced, on the Roman side of the question, such an array of learning and proofs as would, in any age, have entitled his performance to respect, if not admiration. Enforcing the great argument derived from the unity of the church*, which he supports by the authority of all the most ancient fathers, Greek as well as Latin, he passes in review the various cyclical systems that had pre- viously been in use, pointing out their construction and defects, and showing himself acquainted with the chronological cha- racters, both natural and artificial. The various learning, indeed, which this curious tract displays, implies such a facility and range of access to books as proves the libraries of the Irish students, at that period, to have been, for the times in which they lived, extraordinarily well furnished. This eminent man, St. Cummian, who had been one of those most active and instrumental in procuring the adoption of the Roman system by the Irish of the south, and thereby incurred the serious displeasure of the Abbot and Monks of Hy, under whose jurisdiction, as a monk of their order, he was placed, and who continued longer than any other of their monastic brethren to adhere to the old Irish method, in consequence of its having been observed by their venerable founder, St. Co- lumba. In defence of himself and those who agreed with him in opinion, St. Cummian wrote the famous treatise just alluded to, in the form of an Epistle addressed to Segienus, abbot of Hy ; and the learning, ability, and industry with which he has executed his task, must, even by those most inclined to sneer at the literature of tliat period, be regarded as highly remarkable. Though the southern half of Ireland had now received the new Roman method, the question continued to be still agitated in the northern division, where a great portion of the clergy persisted in the old Irish rule ; and to the influence exercised over that part of the kingdom by the successors of St. Columba this perseverance is, in a great measure, to be attributed. It is worthy of remark, however, that notwithstanding the intense eagerness of the contest, not merely in Ireland, but wherever, in Britain, the Irish clergy preached, a spirit of fairness and tolerance was mutually exercised by both parties ; nor was the schism of any of those venerable persons who continued to oppose themselves to the Roman system allowed to interfere with or at all diminish the reverence which their general * Q,uid autem pravius sentiri potest de Ecclnsia matre quam si dicamus, Roma errat, Hierosolyina errat, Alexandria errat, Antiochia errat, totus muiidus errat ; soli tantuia Scoti et Britones rectum sapiunt.— Epist. Cm7«- mian, 20* 234 HISTORY OF IRELAND. character for sanctity inspired. Among other instances of this tolerant spirit may be mentioned the tribute of respect paid publicly to St. Fintin Munnu, by his zealous adversary, Laserian, in the course of their contest respecting the new Paschal rule. A yet more historical instance is presented in the case of Aidan, the great apostle of the Northumbrians, who, though a strenuous opponent of the Roman Paschal sys- tem, continued to be honoured no less in life and after death, by even those persons who had the most vehemently differed with him. The connexion of this venerable Irishman, St. Aidan, with the Anglo-Saxon king Oswald, illustrates too aptly the mutual relations of their respective countries, at this period, to be passed over without some particular notice. During the reign of his uncle Edwin, the young Oswald had lived, an exile, in Ireland, and having been instructed, while there, in the doc- trines of Christianity, resolved, on his accession to the throne, to disseminate tlie same blessing among his subjects. With this view he applied to the Elders of the Scots, among whom he had himself been taught, desiring that they would furnish him with a bishop, through whose instruction and ministry the nation of the English he had been called to govern might receive the Christian faith. In compliance with the royal desire, a monk of Hy, named Aidan, was sent ; to whom, on his arrival, the king gave, as the seat of his see, the small island of Lindisfarne, or, as it has been since called. Holy Isle. In the spiritual labours of the Saint's mission the pious Os- wald took constantly a share ; and it wels often, says Bede, a delightful spectacle to witness, that when the bishop, who knew but imperfectly the English tongue, preached the truths of the Gospel, the king himself, who had become master of the Scotic language during his long banishment in Ireland, acted as interpreter of the word of God to his commanders and ministers.* From that time, continues the same authority, numbers of Scotish, or Irish, poured daily into Britain, preach- ing the faith, and administering baptism througli all the pro- vinces over which king Oswald reigned. In every direction churches were erected, to which the people flocked with joy to hear the word. Possessions were granted, by royal bounty, for the endowment of monasteries and schools, and the Eng- * Ubi pulcherrimo saepe spectaculo contigit, ut evanselizaiite antistite, qui Anglorum linguam perfecte non noverat, ipse Rex suis ducibus ac ministris interpres verbl existeret coelestis, quia nimirum tam longo exilii sui tempore linguam Scotorum jam plene didicerat. — Lib. iii. cap. 3. SHORT DURATION OF REIGNS. 235 lish, old and young, were instructed by their Irish masters in all religious observances.* Having now allowed so long a period of Irish history to elapse, without any reference whatever to the civil transac- tions of the country, it may naturally be expected that I should for a while digress from ecclesiastical topics, and, leaving the lives of ascetic students and the dull controversies of the cloister, seek relief from the tame and monotonous level of such details in the stirring achievements of the camp, the feuds of rival chieftains, or even in the pomps and follies of a barbaric court. But the truth is, there exist in the Irish annals no materials for such digression, — the Church forming, through- out these records, not merely, as in the history of most other countries, a branch or episode of the narrative, but its sole object and theme. In so far, indeed, as a quick succession of kings may be thought to enliven history, there occurs no want of such variety in the annals of Ireland; the lists of her kings, throughout the whole course of the Milesian monarchy, ex- hibiting but too strongly that unerring mark of a low state of civilization. The time of duration allowed by Newton, in his Chronology, to the reigns of monarchs in settled and civil- ized kingdoms is, at a medium, as much as eighteen years for each reign. In small, uncivilized kingdoms, however, the medium allowed is not more than ten or eleven years ; and at this average were the reigns of the kings of Northumbria under the Saxon heptarchy. f What then must be our estimate of the political state of Ireland at this period, when we find that, from the beginning of the reign of Tuathal, a. d. 533, to * Exin' ccepere plures per dies de Scotorum regione venire Britanniam at- que illis Anglorum provinciis, quibiis regnavit rex Osvald, magna devotione verbum Dei prsedicare.— fieonos solet, in graliam esse reditum." — Velser, Rerum Boiarum, lib. v. CLEMENT AND ALBINUS. 249 gress of truth.* Were it even certain that this pope was slow to believe in the existence of antipodes, he would at least have erred in good company ; as already the poet Lucretius had pro- nounced this belief to be inconsistent with reasonf ; while no less a church authority than St. Augustine had denounced it as- contrary to the Scriptures. f But there is every reason to sup- pose, that pope Zachary, on the doctrine of Virgilius being explained to him, saw that it was an opinion to be at least tolerated, if not believed ; and so far was the propounder of it from being, as is commonly stated, punished by losing his bishopric^, that it appears, on the contrary, to have been short- ly after his promulgation of this doctrine that he was raised to the see of Saltzburg. The life of this learned and active man, after his elevation to the see of Saltzburg, was marked by a succession of useful public acts ; and the great Basilic, raised by him in honour of St. Rupert, attested at once the piety and magnificence of hie nature. Bat the most lasting service rendered by him to the cause of religion, was the zealous part which he took in pro- pagating the Gospel among the Carinthians. Two young princes of the reigning family of that province having been, at his request, baptized and educated as Christians, he found himself enabled, through their means, when they afterwards succeeded to power, so far to extend and establish the church already planted in their dominions, as fully to justify his claim to the title of the Apostle of Carinthia. Under the auspices of the munificent Charlemagne, that country on whose shores the missionary and the scholar had never failed to meet with welcome and fame, had become a still more tempting asylum for the student and the exile ; and among the learned of other lands who enjoyed that prince's patronage, those from Ireland were not the least conspicuous or deserving. The strange circumstances under which two * Among others, D'Alembert has founded on this supposed persecution of the Irish scholar, whom he honours so far as to connect his name witli Galileo's, some strong charges against the tribunal of Rome, which, he says, " condamna un celebre astronome pour avoir soutenu le mouvement de la terre, et le declara h6r6tique ; a-peu-pres comme Je pape Zacharie avoit con- damne, quelques siecles auparavant, un Eveque, pour n'avoir pas pense comme Saint Augustin sur les Antipodes, et pour avoir devin6 leur existence six cens ans avant que Cristophe Columbe les decouvrit."— £)iscoMrs Prelim, de r Encyclopedic. t Lib. i. 1064. | De Civitat. Dei, lib. xvi. c. 9. § Thus, Dr. Campbell, one of the most pretending and superficial of the writers on Irish affairs, speaks of " this great man as sentenced to degrada- tion, upon his conviction of being a Mathematician, by pope Zachary, in the eighth century." — Strictures on the Ecclesiast. and Lit. Hist, of Ireland. 250 HISTORY OF IRELAND. itinerant Irish scholars, named Clement and Albinus, contrived to attract the emperor's notice, are thus related by a monkish chronicler of the time.* Arriving, in company with some British merchants, on the shores of France, these two Scota of Ireland, as they arc designated by the chronicler, observing that the crowds who flocked around them on their arrival wer^ eager only for saleable articles, could think of no other mode of drawing attention to themselves, tlian by crying out " Whc wants wisdom ? let him come to us, for we have it to sell." B) continually repeating this cry, they soon succeeded hi becom* ing objects of remark ; and as they were found, upon nearei inquiry, to be no ordinary men, an account of them was fortb with transmitted to Charlemagne, who gave orders that they should be conducted into his presence. Their scheme or wliim^ whichsoever it might have been, was at once crowned with success ; as the king, finding their pretensions to wisdom (as all the learning of that time was by courtesy called) to be not without foundation, placed Clement at the head of a seminary which he then established in France, and sent Albinus to pre- side over a similar institution at Pavia.f The historian Deni- na, remarking tlie fallen state of Italy at this period, when she was compelled, as lie says, to look to the North and the ex- treme West for instructors, adds, as a striking proof of her reduced condition, that Irish monks were placed by Charle- magne at the head of some of her schools.]: Some doubts have been started as to the truth of this charac- teristic adventure of the two Irish scholars.^ But, in addition to the evidence on which the story rests, and which is the * Monach. Sangall. dc Gcst. Carol. t " On coinpte encoro (say the Benedictines) entre les co-oporateurs de Charlemagne dans Text'icution de son grand dessein, un certain Clement, Hi- bernois de nation." — Tom. iv. I " Ma ben maggior maraviglia ci dovrd parere,che I'ltalia non solaniente allora abbia dovuto riconosccre da' barbari boreali il rinnovaniento della milizia,ma abbia da loro dovuto apprendere in quelle stesso tempo le scienze piu necessarie ; e che btsognasse dagli ultimi confini d'occidente et del nord far venire in Italia i maestri ad insegnarci, non che altro, la lingua latina. Carlo Magno nel 781 avea jjrejiosto alle scuole d' Italia e di Francia due Mo- iiachi Irlandesi."— Z)e//e Rivoluiioni it Italia, lib. viii. cap. 12. § After mentioning that one of these Irishmen, Clement, had been detajned in France by Charlemagne, Tiraboschi adds, " L' altro fu da lui mandate in Italia, e gli fu assignato il monastero di S. Agostino presso Pavia, accioche chiunque fosse bramoso, potesse esser da lui istruito. Ecco il gran racconto del Monaco di S. Gallo, su cui e fondata 1' accennata commune ojunione. Ancorche esso si ammettesse per vero, altro finalmente non po- tremmo raccogliene, se non che uno Scozzese fu mandate da Carlo Magno a Favia, per tenervi scuola ; ne cio basterebbe a prevare, che vi fosse tale scarsezza d' uomini dotti in Italia, che convenisse inviarvi stranieri."— -Soles of the world with innumerable bright stars, it is Britain lias her radiaut sun, her sovereign Poutift' Theodore, nurtured from the earliest age in the school of philosophy : it is she possesses Adrian his companion, graced with every virtue . . . This is that Theodore who, though he should be surrounded by a circle of Hibernian scholars, as a boar in the midst of snarl- * The instructor of Aldhelm was Maidulph, an Irishman ; though Mr. Turner (unintentionally, as I am willinj,' to think) suppresses the fact, merely fiuyhig that Aldhelni had "continued his studies at Mahnsbury, where Maululf an Irir-lnnan had founded a monastery."— Vol. ii. Aldhelm himsielf became afterwards abbot of the monastery. t " Cur, inqnani, Hibcrnia, quo catorvatim islinc lectores classibus advccti conflnunt, inelfabili quodam privilegio efieratur: ac si istic, foBcundo Bri- tanniae in cospite, didascali Argivi Romanive duiritos reperiri minime que- ant, qui coelestis tetrica enodantes bibliotheca? problemata sciolis rescrare se Fciscilanliburi valeant. Quamvis enim prajdictum HibernijB rus, discentium opuians vernansque (ut ita dixerim) pascuosa numerositate lectorum, queui- admodum poli cardines astriferis micantium ornentur vibraminibus side- rum ; ast tamen," &(•. Scc.—F.pist. Ilihern. Sylloge. PIETY AKD LEARNING OF THE IRISH. 255 ing dogs, yet as soon as he bares his grammatical tooth, puts quickly to flight the rebel phalanx."* The tributes of Bede to the piety, learning, and benevolence ot* the Irish clergy, have been frequently adverted to in these pages; and while justice was thus liberally rendered to them by the English, we find a French author of the ninth century, Eric of Auxerre, equally zealous in their praise. " What shall I say," he exclaims, "of Ireland, who, despising the dangers of tlie deep, is migrating, with almost her whole train of phi- losophers, to our coasts r'f Among the names that, early in tiie ninth century, adorn this list of distinguished Irishmen, are tliose of Sedulius and Donatus, the former the author, it is supposed, of the Com- mentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul. From the many Irish scholars of this name that arose at different periods into repu- tation, considerable difficulty has been found in distinguishing their respective times and writings.]: But it appears pretty certain, though both were natives of Ireland, that the author of the poems mentioned in a preceding part of this work is to be considered as a distinct person from the commentator on St. Paul. In the subject and origin of one of the writings ascribed to the later Sedulius^, may be found a proof of the constant prevalence among his countrymen of that tradition respecting their origin from Spain, to which I have had occa- sion, at the commencement of this volume, to advert. On account of the reputation he had acquired by his commentaries on St. Paul, this abbot was dispatched by the pope, with the dignity of bishop of Oreto, to Spain, for the purpose of recon- ciling some differences of opinion that had arisen among the clergy of that country. The Spaniards, objecting to tlie ap- pearance of a stranger in such a capacity, made some difficulty as to receiving him ; on which Sedulius, it is said, drew up his treatise entitled " the concordance of Spain and Hibernia," in which, referring, no doubt, to the traditions of both countries, he * " Etiamsi beatsc memoriae Tlieodorus summi sacerdotii gubernacula resrens, Hibernensium globo discipulorum (ceu aper truculeiitus molossoruni catasta ringente vallatus) stipetnr; limato perniciter Grammatico riento."' &c. 8cc.—Ih. t " Q,uid Hiberniam memorem, contempto pelagi discrimine, pcuic tot;i cum grege philosophorum ad littora nostra migrantem." — ^d Carol. Calr. X See, for the various authorities on this subject, the Ecclesiar. Primord. 769., where the result of the mass of evidence so laboriously brought to- gether seems to be, that the commentator and tlie poet were decidedly dis- tinct persons. § Thus mentioned by Hepidanus, the monk of St. Gall, under the year 818: — " Sedulius Scottus clarus habetur." 256 HISTORY OF IRELAND, asserted the claims of the Irish to be considered as Spaniards, and to enjoy all the privileges of the Spanish nation.* At the same period another accomplished Irishman, Donatus, having gone on a pilgrimage to Rome, was induced to fix him- self in Italy, and became soon after Bishop of Fiesole. That he left some writings behind him, political as well as theo- logical, may be collected from the epitaph on his tomb, com- posed by himself.f But of these productions the only remains that have reached us are some not inelegant verses, warmly in praise of his native land4 But the most remarkable man that Ireland, or perhaps, any other country, sent forth, in tliose ages, was the learned and subtle John Scotus ; whose distinctive title of Erigena, or, as it was sometimes written, Eringena, points so clearly to the land of his birth, that, among the numbers who have treated of his life and writings, but a very few have ventured to con- test this point. At what period lie removed from Ireland to France cannot be very accurately ascertained ; but is is con- jectured to have been about tlie year 845, when he had already reached the age of manhood, and was doubtless furnished with all the learning of his native schools ; and such was the success, as well of his social as of his intellectual powers, that Charles the Bald, king of France, not only extended to him his patron- age, but made him the companion of his most secluded and familiar hours. For the early travels of this scholar to Greece and into the East, there appears to be no other foundation than a wish to * Harris on Ware's Writers, art. Sedulius. t " Gratuita tliscipuJis dictabam scripta libellis Schemata metrorum, dicta beata senum." X " Pinibus occiduis describitur optima tellus Nomine ct antiquis Scotia dicta libris. Insula dives opum, Kcmmarum, vestis et auri : Commoda corporibus, aere, sole, solo. Melle fluit pulchris et lacteis Scotia campis, Vestibus atque armis, frugibus, arte, viris," &,c. &c. The translation of these verses given in O'Halloran's History, was one of the earliest pieces of poetry with which in my youth I was familiar ; and it is purely in the indulgence of old recollections that I here venture to cite a few of the lines :— " Far westward lies an isle of ancient fame, By nature bless'd, and Scotia is her name, Enroll'd in books — exhaustless is her store Of veiny silver and of golden ore. Her fruitful soil for ever teems with wealth, With gems her waters, and her air with health ; Her verdant fields with milk and honey flow, Her woolly fleeces vie with virgin snow. Her waving furrows float with bearded corn. And arts and arms her envied sons adorn." account for his extraordinary knowledge of the Greek and (3ther languages, as well as for that acquaintance with the mystic theology of the Alexandrian school, which he derived, in reality, from his study of the writings ascribed to J3ionysius the Areopagite. A copy of these treatises had been sent as a present to Louis I., by Michael Balbus, the Greek emperor ; and as additional reverence was attached, in France, to their contents, from the notion that Dionysius, the supposed author, was the same as St. Denys, the first bishop of Paris, Charles the Bald, witli a view of rendering the work accessible to such, readers as lumselfj who were unacquainted with Greek, ap- pointed Erigena to the task of translating it into jjatin. The change effected in tlic theology of pjurope by this book, as well as by tlie principles deduced from it afterwards in the translator's own writings, continued to be felt through a very long period. Previously to this time, the scholastic mode of considering religious questions had prevailed generally among the theologians of Europe* ; but tlie introduction to the mystic doctrines of Alexandria by John Scotus infused a new element into the theology of the Westf ; and the keen struggle which then commenced betw^een those opposing principles has formed * By Brucker (torn. iii. Do Scholastiris) the commencement of the scliolastic tlieology is brought down so late as to the twelfth century; but it is plain from his owu history that this form of theology had a much earlier origin ; and by Mosheim the credit of first introducing it is attributed to the Irish of the eighth century. " That the Hibernians," lie says, " who were called Scots in this century, were lovers of learning, and distinguished themselves in these times of igno- rance by the culture of the sciences beyond all the other European nation.^, travelling through the most distant lands, both with a view to improve and to communicate their knowledge, is a fact with which I have been long ac- quainted ; as we see them, in the most authentic records of antiquity, dis- charging, with the highest reputation and applause, the function of doctor in France, Germany, and Italy, both during this and the following century. But that these Hibernians were the first teachers of the scholastic theology in Europe, and so early as the eighth century illustrated the doctrines of religion by the principles of philosophy, I learned but lately from the testi- mony of Benedict, Abbot of Aniane, in the province of Languedoc." He then produces his proofs, to which I refer the reader, (Cent. viii. part ii. chap. 3.) and adds : — " From hence it appears, that the philosophical or scho- lastic theology among the Latins is of more ancient date than is commonly imagined." t " Illos enim Latinis auribus accommodando chaos simul Alexandrinuni. quod plerosque hactenus in Occidente latuerat, notum fecit, ansamque dedit ut cum theologia scholastica, mystica quoque extolleret, rationi same et philosophise non minus inimica quam ilia ut supra dictum." — Brucker. De Philosoph. Christianor. Occident. " And thus," adds Brucker, " that philo- sophic enthusiasm, which the Oriental philosophy brought forth and Pla- tonism nursed, which Egypt educated, Asia nurtured, and the Greek church adopted, was introduced, under the pretext and authority of a great apos- tolic name, ^nto the Western churches, and there gave rise lo innumerable mischiefs." ^i^^ 258 HisxaiiY OF Ireland. a considerable part of the history of religious controversy dowi to the present day. It is not a little singular, too, that while as an eminent church historian alleges, " the Hibernians wen the first teachers of scholastic theology in Europe," so an Hibernian, himself unrivalled among the dialecticians of hifi day, should have been also the first to introduce into the arena the antagonist principle of mysticism. The want of that self-restraint acquired in a course of train- ing for holy orders, — for, by a rare fate in those days, Erigena was both a scholar and a layman, — is observable in the daring lengths to which his speculations respecting the nature of God are carried ; speculations bordering, it must be owned, closely on the confines of Spinozism or Pantheism. Thus, " the soul," he says, " will finally pass into the primordial causes of all things, and these causes into God ; so that, as before the exist- ence of tlie world there was nothing but God and the causes of all things in God, so there will be, after its end, nothing else than God and the causes of all things in God." With the same Pantheistic view, he asserts that " all things are God, and God all things, — that God is the maker of all things, and made in all." It is plain that this universal deification is but another form of universal materialism ; and the self-satisfaction, and even triumph, with which so good and pious a man — for such Erigena is allowed universally to have been — could come to such desolating conclusions, was but the result of that danger- ous principle of identifying religion with philosophy, for which he has been so lauded by one of the most eminent of the modern apostles of rationalism.* The notions just cited are promulgated in his Treatise on the Division of Nature, or the Nature of Things ; and though in that work, which was written subsequently to his translation of Dionysius, there is to be found, in its fullest force, the intox- icating influence of the fountain at which lie had been drink- ing, it is manifest that, even before he had become the inter- preter of the dreams of others, his mind had already been * " Remarquez qu'ils sont tous eccI6siastiques et leur philosophic est toute rcligieuse et toute chr6tienne. C'est la leur commun caractere ; ils no font tous, sous ce rapport, que commenter cette belle phrase de Scot Erigene, ' il n'y a pas deux 6tudes, Tune de la philosophic, I'autre de la religion ; la vraie philosophic est la vraie religion, et la vraie religion est la vraie philosophic.' " — Victor Cousin, Cours de Philosophic, torn. i. lepon 9. The original passage, here referred to, is as follows :— " duid est aliud de philosophia tractare, nisi verae religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa Deus, et humiliter colitur et rationabiliter investi- gatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimqiie verum religionem esse veram philosophiam."— De Pradestinatione. JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA. 259 stored, by the study of the Platonic writers, with visionary notions of its own ; as, in the share taken by him in the famous controversy with the monk Gotescalc, on the subject of pre- destination, he had, in the midst of those dialectic subtleties in which his chief strength and enjoyment lay, exhibited the same daringness of research into the mysteries of the Divine nature, which characterizes those later flights of his genius to which I have adverted.* Combating the doctrine of Gotescalc, who maintained, in accordance with the views of St. Augustine, and, afterwards, of Calvin, that the decrees of God had, from all eternity, preordained some men to everlasting life, and others to everlasting punishment and misery, Erigena denied that there was any predestination of the damned ; contending that the prescience of God extended only to the election of the blessed; since he could not foresee that of which he was not the author, and, being the source neither of sin nor evil, could not foreknow or predestinate them. In truth, identifying, as he did, all things with God, it was not possible for him to admit of permanent pain or evil in the system, without making that Being a sharer in them. Hence his doctrine, that the punishment of the damned, and even the wickedness of the devils themselves, will, some time or other, cease, and the blessed and the unblessed dwell in a state of endless happi- ness, differing only in degree. While thus, in his notion of the final redemption even of the demons and the damned, he revived one of the heresies of Origen, his assertion of the power of the human will, and his denial of the corruption of human nature, betrayed a coinci- dence between his creed and that of the heretic Pelagius, which he in vain endeavoured, by logical subtleties, to disguise. He had, in fact, gathered from almost every heresy some ma- terials for his philosophy, and his philosophy, in turn, lent vigour and animation to effete heresy. Besides the labours of this ingenious man which I have here mentioned, he entered likewise into the controversy raised, at this period, respecting the manner in which the body and blood * " Scott Erigene avait puise dans son commerce (avec les 6crits da Denis I'Areopagite) una foule d'id6es Alexandrines qu'il a d6velopp6es dans ses deux ouvrages originaux, I'un sur la Predestination et la Grace, I'autre sur la Division de Etres. Ces idees, par leur analogic avec celles de S. Augustin, entr6rent facilement dans la circulation, et grosserent le tresor de la scholas- tique."— Cousin, ut supra. It vv'ill be seen that the mistake into which the learned professor has here fallen, can only be accounted for by his not having made himself acquainted with the works of which he speaks ; as it is not possible for two systems to have less analogy with each other than those of St. Augustine and John Erigena upon the subject of predestination. 260 HISTORY OP IRELAND. of Christ are present in the sacrament. The treatise written by him upon the subject no longer exists ; but the general opinion is, that he denied the Real Presence ; and the natural bent of his mind to run counter to prevailing and sanctioned opinions, renders it most probable that such was his view of this now, for the first time, controverted mystery. In stating, however, as he is said to have done, that the sacrament of the Eucharist is not the " true body and true blood," he might have had reference solely to the doctrine put forth then recently by Paschasius Radbert, who maintained that the body present in the Eucharist was the same carnal and palpable body which was bora of the Virgin, which suffered on the cross, and rose from the dead ; whereas the belief of the Catholic church, on this point of doctrine, has always been, that the body of Christ is under the symbols not corporeally or carnally, but in a spirit- ual manner.* The stories introduced into the general accounts of John Erigena, of his removing to England on the death of his patron, Charles the Bald, and acquiring a new Maecenas in the person of Alfred, the great English king, are all mani- festly fables ; arising out of a confusion, of which William of Malmesbury and others availed themselves, between our Irish John — who, it is evident, remained in France till he died, — and a monk from Saxony, much patronized by Alfred, called John of Atheling.f At what period Erigena died is not clearly ascertained ; but it is concluded that his death must have oc- curred before the year 875, as a letter written in that year by Anastasius, the Bibliothecarian, speaks of him in the past tense, as if then dead.f The space devoted here to the account of this extraordinary * Thus explained, in perfect consonance, as he says, with the doctrine of the Council of Trent, by the celebrated missiionary, Veron : — " Ergo, corpus Christi, seu Christus, est in symbolis spirituali inodo seu spiritualiter et non corporali seu carnali, ncc corporaliter seu carnaliter."— iic^u/a. Ftd. Cathol. c. ii. sect. 11. t The antiquary Leland, though following the popular error in numbering John Scotus among those learned men who adorned the court of Alfred, yet expressly distinguishes him from that Saxon monk with whom Mr. Turner, among others, has strangely confounded him :— " Joannem monachura et Saxonia transmarina oriundum, Joannem Scotum qui Dionysii hierarchiam interpretatus est, viros extra qutestionem doctissimos, in pretio et familiari- tate habuit."— LeZand. Commentar. cap. 115. X This long and curious letter may be found in Usher's Sylloge. " It is wonderful," says the Bibliothecarian, " how that barbarous man (who, placed at the extremity of the world, might, in proportion as he was remote from the rest of mankind, be supposed to be unacquainted with other languages,) was able to comprehend such deep things, and to render them in another tongue. I mean John Scotigena, whom I have heard spoken of as a holy man in every respect." MACARIUS. 261 person* will hardly, I think, be deemed more than it deserves ; since, in addition to the honour derived to his country from the immense European reputation which he acquired, he appears to have been, in the whole assemblage of his qualities, intel- lectual and social, a perfect representative of the genuine Irish character, in all its various and versatile combinations. Combining humour and imagination with powers of shrewd and deep reasoning, — the sparkle upon the surface as vvell as the mine beneath, — he yet lavished both these gifts impru- dently, exhibiting on all subjects almost every power but that of discretion. His life, in its social relations, seems to have been marked by the same characteristic anomalies; for while the simplicity of his mind and manner, and the festive play of his wit, endeared him to private friends, the daring heterodoxy of his written opinions alarmed and alienated the public, and rendered him at least as much feared as admired. Another Irish philosopher, named Macarius, who flourished in France about this period, is supposed by some writers to have preceded the time of Erigena, but, more probably, was either his contemporary, or came soon after him, as the doc- trine promulgated in a treatise ascribed to his pen, that " there is but one soul in all mankind," had clearly its origin in the emanative system of that mystic school of philosophy with which the translator of the pseudo-Dionysius had, for the first time, made the Western Church acquainted. * I cannot resist, tl) > desire of adding to the other notices of this Irish scholar the following, from an eminent German writer :— " On place dans un ordre beaucoup plus 61eve Jean Scot, ne en Irlande, (de la son surnom d'Eri- gene) homme fort lettr6, esprit philosophique et independant, dont on ignore quelles furent les resources pour atteindre a cette superiority On peut regarder comme des phenomenes singuliers pour son siecle ses connoissances en latin et en grec (quelques-uns y joignent la langue araoe) son amour pour la philosophie d'Anstote, sa traduction, si precieuse en Occident, de Denys r Areopagite, ses opinions franches et 6clair6es dans les disputes de son temps sur la predestination et I'eucharistie, sa maniere de consid6rer la philoso- phie comme la science des principes de toute chose, science qui ne peut etre distinguee de la religion, et son systeme philosophique renouvel6 du n6oplatonisme, ou domine ce principe,— Dieu est la substance de toutes choses, elles d6coulent de la plenitude de son etre, et retournent enfin a lui. Tous ces r6sultats si extraordinaires d'6tudes laborieuses, et d'une pens6e forte et originale, eussent pu faire plus de bien, si leur influence n'eiit ete arret6e par les proscriptions de rorthodoxie."— yerenemon, Manuel de VHist. de la Phil. 262 HISTORY OF IRELAND. CHAPTER XIV. STATE OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS IN IRELAND DURING THE SAME PERIOD. In a preceding chapter of ihis volume there has been sub- mitted to the reader most of the evidence, as well incidental as direct, suggested by various writers, in support of the be- lief, that the use of letters was known to the pagan Irish. But, perhaps, one of the most convincing proofs, that they were at least acquainted with this gift before the time when St. Patrick introduced among them the Christian doctrine, is to be found in the immediate display of mind and talent which the impulse of that great event produced, — in the rapidity with which they at once started forth as scholars and missionaries, and became, as we have seen, the instructors of all Europe, at a time when, according to some, they were but rude learners themselves. It is, indeed, far easier to believe — what there is besides such strong evidence to prove — that the elements of learning were already known to them when St. Patrick and hhi brother mis- sionaries arrived, than that the seeds then for the first time sown should have burst forth in so rich and sudden a harvest. To the question, — Where, then, are any of the writings of those pagan times 1 where the tablets, the manuscripts, even pretending to be of so ancient a date 1 — it can only be answer- ed, that the argument involved in this question would apply with equal force to the two or three centuries succeeding the time of St. Patrick, when, as all know, not merely letters, but the precious fruits of those elements, literature and the sciences, had begun to spring up in Ireland. And yet, of that long and comparatively shining period, when the schools of this country attracted the attention of all Europe ; when the accomplished Cummian drew from thence his stores of erudition, and Co- lumba's biogi-apher acquired in them his Latin style; when Columbanus carried to Gaul, from the celebrated school of Banchor, that knowledge of Greek and Hebrew which he af- terwards displayed in his writings, and the acute Virgilius went forth, enriched with the various science which led him to anticipate the discovery of the sphericity of the earth ; — of all that period, in Ireland, abounding as it was in scholars and writers extraordinary for their time, not a single authentic manuscript now remains ; not a single written relic, such as ought to convince that class of sceptics who look to direct DESTRUCTION OF IRISH MANUSCRIPTS. 263 proofs alone, that the art of writing even existed in those days. The very same causes — the constant ravages of invasion and the blind fury of internal dissension* — which occasioned the destruction and loss of manuscripts between the time of St. Patrick and the ninth or tenth century, account with still stronger force for the disappearance of all earlier vestiges of writing ; and, in fact, the more recent and scanty at present are the remains of the acknowledged era of Irish literature, the more it weakens the argument drawn from the want of any such visible relics of the ages preceding it.f We have seen that a manuscript copy of the Four Gospels, still extant, is said to liave been written by the hand of St. Columbkill ; and to this copy Dr. O'Connor triumphantly re- fers, as afibrding an irrefragable answer to those who deny the existence of any Irish manuscript of an older date than the tenth century. I But the zeal of this amiable scholar in the cause of his country's antiquities, and the facility with which, on most points connected with that theme, he adopts as proved what has only been boldly asserted, render even him, with all liis real candour and learning, not always a trustworthy wit- ness ; and the result of the researches on this point, in Ireland, * " Nee mirum," says Ware, in the dedication prefixed to his account of Irish writers ; "nam periisse liquet plurimorum notitiam, una cum multo maxima operum eorum parte, cum Hibernia nostra seditionibus intestinis oppressa, quasi miseriarum diluvio inundata fuerit." Of the wanton destruction of Irish manuscripts which took place after the invasion of the English, I shall, in a subsequent part of this work, have occasion to speak. Many of these precious remains were, as the author of Cambrensis Eversus tells us, actually torn up by boys for covers of books, and by tailors for measures :— " Inter pueros in ludis literariis ad librorum sittibas, et inter sartores ad lascinias pro vestium forma dimetiendi." " It was till the time of James I.," says Mr. Webb, " an object of government to discover and destroy every literary remain of the Irish, in order the more fully to eradicate from their minds every trace of their ancient independence." —Analysis of the Antiq. of Ireland. t The absurd reasoning of the opponents of Irish antiquities on this point has been well exposed by the English writer just cited :— " The more recent they can by any means make this date, the greater, in their opinion, is the objection to the authenticity of Irish history, and to the pretensions of the national antiquarians to an early use of letters among their countrymen." He afterwards adds : — " If we possess so few Irish manuscripts, written before the twelfth century, it is plain that, by adducing this circumstance, they the more clearly ascertain the extent of those disturbances which de- stroyed every historical record prior to the tenth, and which must have been far more effectual in causing to perish every remain of the fifth age." — Id. X After quoting Usher's account of the Kells manuscript, Dr. O'Connor says :— " Ilabemus itaque, ex indubitatae fidei scriptoribus ad nostra fere tempora extitisse antiquissimos codices, characteribus Hibernicis scriptos, qui longo ante seculum decimum exarati fuere ; ita ut a veritate plurimum abesse con- sendi sunt qui nullum ante seculum X. codicem characteribus Hibernicis Bcriptum extare opinantur."— /?fr, Hib. Script. Ep. J^tinr. 264 HISTORY OF IRELAND. , conni of one whose experience in the study of manuscripts^ bined with his general learning, render him an authority of" no ordinary weight*, is, that the oldest Irish manuscript which has been discovered in that country, is the Psalter of Cashe] written in the latter end of the ninth century. For any remains, therefore, of our vernacular literature b fore that period, which have reached us, we are indebted Tigernach and the annalists preceding him, through whom few short pieces of ancient poetry have been transmitted ; and to those writers of the tenth century, who, luckily taking upon themselves the office of compilers, have made us acquaint- ed with the contents of many curious works which, though extant in their times, have since been lost. Among the fragments transmitted through the annalists are some dis- tichs by the arch-poet Dubtach, one of St. Patrick's earliest converts, the antiquated idiom of which is accounted, by Irish scholars, to be in itself a sufficient proof of their authenticity.f A few other fragments from poets of that period have been preserved by the same trustworthy chronicler ; and it appears on the whole highly probable, that while abroad, as we have seen, such adventurous Irishmen as Pelagius and Cselestius were entering into the lists with the great champions of ortho- doxy, — while Sedulius was taking his place among the later Latin classics, — there were also, in Ireland itself, poets, or Fileas, employing their native language, and either then re- cently quickened into exertion by the growing intercourse of their country with the rest of Europe, or forming but links, perhaps, of a long bardic succession extending to remote times. According as we descend the stream of his Annals, the me- trical fragments cited by Tigernach become more numerous ; and a poet of the seventh century, Cenfaelad, furnishes a num- ber of these homely ornaments of his course. The singular fate of the monarch, Murcertach, who, in the year 534, was drowned in a hogshead of wine, seems to have formed a fa- vourite theme with the poets, as no less than three short pieces of verse on this subject have been preserved by the annalists, written respectively by the three poets, Cernach, Sin, and Cenfaelad. In these, as in all the other fragments assigned to that period, there is to be found, as the learned editor of the Irish Chronicles informs us, a peculiar idiom and structure of verse, which denotes them to be of the early date to which * Astle, Origin and Progress of Writing. t " Carminis antiquitatem indicant phrases jam obsoletse, et a recentiorum idiomate a\ienx."—Ep. J^unc. cv. LATIN POEMS IN RHYME. 265 they are assigned. It would appear, indeed, that the modern contrivance of rhyme, which is generally supposed to have had a far other source, may be traced to its origin in the ancient rans or rins, as they termed their stanzas, of the Irish. The able historian of the Anglo-Saxons, in referring to some Latin verses of Aldhelm, which he appears to consider as the earli- est specimen of rhyme now extant, professes himself" at a loss to discover whence that form of verse could have been de- rived.* But already, before the time of Aldhelm, the use of rhyme had been familiar among the Irish, as well in their ver- nacular verses as in those which they wrote in Latin. Not to dwell on such instances, in the latter language, as the Hymns of St. Columba, respecting whose authenticity there may be some question, aa example of Latin verses interspersed with rhyme is to be found among the poems of St. Columbanusf, which preceded those of Aldhelm by near half a century. So far back, indeed, as the fifth century, another Irish poet, Sedu- lius, had, in some of the verses of his well-known hymn on tiie liife of Christ, left a specimen of much the same sort of rhyme. | As practised most generally, in their own language, by the Irish, this method consisted in rhyming at every hemistich, or, in other words, making the syllable in the middle of the line rhyme to that of the end ; much in the manner of those verses called, in the twelfth century. Leonine, from the name of the writer who had best succeeded in them. According to this * " Here, then," says Mr. Turner, " is an example of rhyme in an author who lived before the year 700, and he was an Anglo-Saxon". Whence did he derive it ? Not from the Arabs : they had not yet reached Europe." t Beginning, " Mundus jste transit et quotidie decrescit : Nemo vivens manebit, nulhis vivus remansit." Though the rhymes, or coincident sounds, occur thus, in general, on the final syllable, there are instances throughout the poem of complete double rhymes. As, for instance, " Dilexerunt tenebras tetras magis quam lucem ; Imitari contemnunt vitje Dominum Ducem, Velut in somnis regnent, una hora Itetantur, Sed jpterna tormenta adhuc illis parantur." I The following lines from this hymn will afford a specimen of tlje Irish method of rhyming : — " A solis ortus cardiwe, ad usque terrce limitewi, Christum canamus principcm— natum Maria virginc." But it is still more correctly exemplified in a hymn in honour of St, Bngid, MTitten, as some say, by Columbkill ; but, according to others, by St. Ultan, of Ardbraccan. See Usher, Eccles. Primord. 963. "Christum in nostra insula— qua; vocatur Hibernia, Ostensus est hominiftMs— maxirais mir-abilidw*, &c. Vol. I. 23 266 HISTORY OF IRELAND. " art of the Irish*," as it was styled, most of the distichs pre- ' served by Tigernach from the old poets were constructed ; and it is plain that Aldhelm, whose instructor, Maidulph, was a na- tive of Ireland, must have derived his knowledge of this, a« well as of all other literary accomplishments of that day, from ' the lips of his learned master. How nearly bordering on jeal- ! ousy was his own admiration of the schools of the Irish has been seen in the sarcastic letter addressed by him to Eaghfrid, who had just returned from a course of six years' study in that country, overflowing, as it would appear, with gratitude and praise. In its infant state, poetry has been seldom separated from music ; and it is probable that most of the stanzas cited by the annalists were meant originally to be associated with song. Of some of the juvenile works of St. Columbanus we are told, that they were " worthy of being sungf ;" and a scene brought vividly, in a few words, before our eyes, by the Irish biographer of Columba, represents that holy man as sitting, along with his brethren, upon the banks of the beautiful lake Kee|, while among them was a poet skilled, we are told, in modulating song to verse, " after the manner of his art."$ That it was to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument, called the Cruit, they performed these songs or chants, appears to be the most general opinion. In some distichs on the death of Columba, preserved in the Annals of the Four Mastersj], we find mention * From the following account of the metrical structure of Irish verse, it will be seen that it was peculiarly such as a people of strong musical feeling (and with whom the music was the chief object) would be likely to invent and practise : — " The rhythm consists in an equal distance of intervals, and similar ter- minations, each line being divisible into two, that it may be more easily accommodated to the voice and the music of the bards. It is not formed by the nice collocation of long and short syllables, but by a certain harmonic rhythm, adjusted to the voice of song by the position of words which touch the heart and assist the memory." — Essay by Doctor Drummond, Trans, of Royal Irish .Bead. vol. xvi. t " Ad canendum digna,"— so pronounced by his biographer Jonas. \ In the county of Roscommon. § Alio in tempore S. Columba, cum juxta stagnum Cei, propo ostium fliiminis quod Latine Bos dicitur (i. e. the Boyle river) die aliqua cum fratri- bus sederet, quidam ad eos Scoticus poeta devenit. Q,ui cum recessisset, Fratres ad Sanctum, cur, inquiunt, ali(iuod ex more sua3 artis, canticum non postulasti modulabiliter decantari. — Jidamnati, lib. i. c. 42. (I Ad ann. 593. W^ritten by Dalian Feargall, and thus translated by Dr. O'Connor : — Est medicina medici absque remedio— «st Dei decretum timor cum moerore. Est carmen cum cythara sine gaudio— sonus sequens nostrum Ducem ad se- pulchrum. IRISH MUSIC. 267 of this kind of harp * in rather a touching passage : — " Like a song of the cruit without joy, is the sound that follows our master to the tomb ;" and its common use in the eighth century, as an accompaniment to the voice, may be implied from Bede's account of the religious poet Ceadmon, who, in order to avoid taking a part in the light songs of society, always rose, as he tells us, from table when the harp was sent round, and it came to his turn to sing and play. The Italians, who are known to have been in possession of the harp before the time of Dante, are, by a learned musician of their own country, Galilei, said to have derived it from Ireland ; the instrument, according to his account, being no other than a cithara with many strings, and having, at the time when he wrote, four octaves and a tone in compass. How little music, though so powerful in its influence on the feelings, either springs from, or is dependent upon, intellect, appears from the fact, that some of the most exquisite effusions of this art have had their origin among the simplest and most uncultivated people ; nor can all that taste and science bring aflerwards to the task do more, in general, than diversify, by new combinations, those first wild strains of gaiety or passion into which nature had infused her original inspiration. In Greece the sweetness of the ancient music had already been lost, when all the other arts were but on their way to perfec- tionf ; and from the account given by Giraldus Cambrensis| * Of this instrument, the harp, the Irish are said to have had four different species ; the clarseach, the keirnine, the cronar cruit, and the creamtheine cruit ; for all of which see W^alker, Hist. Mem. of Irish Bards, Beauford, ihid., Appendix, and Ledwich's Antiquities. What Montfaucon, however, says of the different names given to the lyre, among the ancients, may also, perhaps, be applicable here :— " Among this great diversity I cannot but think the same instrument must often be signified by different names." t See Anacharsis, chap. 27. notes v. vii. " It is remarkable," says Wood, " that the old chaste Greek melody was lost in refinement before their other arts had acquired perfection."— £ssay on Homer. X Topograph. Dist. 3. c. 11. This curious passage, which appears, though confusedly, even to imply that the Irish were acquainted with counterpoint, is prefaced by a declaration that in their music alone does he find any thing to commend in that people ;— " In musicis solum instrumentis commenda- bilem invenio gentis istfe diligentiam." The passage in question is thus translated in Mr. Walker's Hist. Mem. of the Irish Bards:—" It is wonderful how, in such precipitate rapidity of the fingers, the musical proportions are preserved ; and by their art, faultless throughout, in the midst of their coin- plicated modulations, and most intricate arrangement of notes, by a rapidi^ so sweet, a regularity so irregular, a concord so discordant, the melody is rendered harmonious and perfect, whether the chords of the diatesseron or diapente are struck together ; yet they always begin in a soft mood, and end in the same, that all may be perfect in the sweetness of delicious sounds. They enter on, and again leave, their modulations with so much subtilty, and the tinglings of the small strings sport with so much freedom, under the deep notes of the bass," &c. &c. 268 HISTORY OF IRELAND. of the Irish harpers of the twelfth century*, it may be inferred that the melodies of the country, at the earlier period of which we are speakmg, was in some degree like the first music of the infant age of Greece, and partook of the freshness of that morning of mind and hope which was then awakening around them. With respect to the structure of the ancient Irish harp, there does not appear to have been any thing accurately ascer- tained ; but, from that retentiveness of all belonging to the past whicJi we have shown to have characterized this people, it appears most probable that their favourite instrument was kept sacredly unaltered ; and remained the same perhaps in later times, when it charmed the ears of English poets and philosophers!, as when it had been modulated by the bard Cro- nan, in the sixth century, upon the banks of the lake Kee. It would appear that the church music, likewise, of the Irish enjoyed no inconsiderable repute in the seventh century, as we find Gertrude, the daughter of the potent Maire du Palais, Pepin, sending to Ireland for persons qualified to instruct the nuns of the abbey of Nivelle in psalmody| ; and the great mo- nastery of Bangor, or Benchoir, near Carrickfergus, is sup- posed, by Ware, to have derived its name from the White " Mirum quod in tanta tarn praecipiti digitorum capacitate niusica servatur proportio : et arte per omnia indenmi inter crispatos modules, organaque multipliciter intricata, tarn suavi velocitate, tarn dispari paritate, tarn dis- cordi concordia consona redditur et complefur melodia, seu diatesseron seu diapente chordffi concrepent. Semper tamen ab molli incipiunt et in idem redeunt, ul cuncta sub jucundai sonoritatis dulcedine compleantur. Tam subtiliter modules intrant et exeunt; sicque sub obtuso grossioris chordae sonitu, gracilium tinnitus licentiua ludunt," &c. &;c. — Topograph. Hibern. dist. 3. cap. 11. * " Even so late as the eleventh century," says Warton, " the practice continued among the Welsh bards of receiving instructions in the Bardic profession from Irela.nd"— Hist, of English Poetry. t Alluding to such tributes as the following :— " The Irish I admire And still cleave to that lyre, As our muse's mother ; And think, till I expire, Apollo's such another." Drayton. " The harp," says Bacon, " hath the concave not along the strings, but across the strings ; and no harp hath the sound so melting and prolonged as the Irish harp."— 5///w. Sylvar. See also Selden's Notes on Drayton's Poly- olbion. The following is from Evelyn's Journal :— " Came to see my old acquaint- ance, and the most incomparable player on the Irish harp, Mr. Clarke, after his travels Such music before or since did I never hear, that instru- ment being neglected for its extraordinary difficulty ; but in my judgment far superior to the lute itself, or whatever speaks with strings." t " Pour instruire la communaute dans la chant des Pseaumes et la medi- tation des choses saintes."— Quoted from Fleury by D' Alton, Essay, 216. RUDE ARCHITECTURE. 269 Choir which belonged to it.* A certain sect of antiquarians, whose favourite object it is to prove that the Irish church was in no respect connected with Rome, have imagined some mode by which, through the medium of Asiatic missionaries, her Chant or Psalmody might have been derived to her directly from the Greeks. But their whole hypothesis is shown to be a train of mere gratuitous assumption ; and it is little doubted that, before the introduction of the Latin, or Gregorian Chant, by St. Malachy, which took place in the twelfth century, the style of music followed by the Irish, in their church service, was that which had been introduced by St. Patrick and his companions from Gaul.f The religious zeal which, at this period, covered the whole island with monasteries and churches, had not, in the materials at least of architecture, introduced any change or improve- ment. Stone structures were still unknown ; and the forest of oak which, from old heathen associations, had suggested the site of the church, furnished also the rude material of which it was constructed. In some few instances these wooden edifices were encircled by an inclosure of stone, called a casiol, like that which Bede describes as surrounding a chapel erected on Holy Island by St. Cuthbert, The first churches, indeed, of Northumbria were all constructed of wood ; and that of St. Finan, the Irish bishop, at Lindisfarn, was, as we are told, built after " the fashion of his country, not of stone, but of split oak, and covered with reeds."| When such was the rude simplicity of their ecclesiastical architecture, it may be concluded that their dwellings were still more homely and frail ; and in this, as in most of the other arts of life, their slow progress may be ascribed mainly to their civil institutions. Where possessions were all temporary, the natural motive to build durably was wanting. Instead of being brought together, too, in cities, where emulation and mutual interchange of mind would have been sure to lead to improve- ment, the separate clans of the Irish sat down, each in its he- reditary canton, seldom meeting but in the field, as fellow- combatants, or as foes. In this respect, the religious zeal which now universally prevailed supplied, in some degree, the place of industry and commerce ; and, among the many civi- * According to O'Halloran and Dr. O'Connor, the name Benn-Choir signi- fies Sweet Choir. t See, on this subject, Lanigan, chap. xxvi. note 46. I In insula Lindisfarnensi fecit ecclesiam episcopali sede congruam, quam tamen more Scotorum non de lapide sed de robore secto totam composuit at- que arundine texit.— Bede, lib. 3. cap. 25 23* 270 HISTOKY OF IRELAND. ^^M lizing eftects of the monastic institutions, it was not the least useful thg,t, wherever established, they were the means of at- tracting" multitudes around them, and, by examples of charity and self-denial, inspiring them with better motives than those of clanship for mutual dependence and concert. The commu- nity collected, by degrees, around the Oak of St. Brigid, at Kildare, grew at length into a large and flourishing town ; and even the solitary cell of St. Kevin, among the mountains, drew around it, by degrees, such a multitude of dwellings as, in the course of time, to form a holy city in the wilderness.'*' With regard to our evidence of the state of agriculture, at this period, the language employed, on such subjects, in the Lives of the Saints, our only sources of information, is too vague and general to afford any certain knowledge. The tend- ing of sheep was, as we have seen, the task assigned to St. Patrick during liis servitude ; and it is, indeed, most probable that pasturage was then, as it continued for many centuries after, the chief employment of the people. f The memorable " Earn," however, of the apostle's friend Dicho, implies ob- viously the practice of hoarding grain; and from an account given, in the annals for the year 650, of a murder which took place in "the bakehouse of a mill," it would appear that water-mills J had already been brought into use at that time.^ There is, indeed, mention made, in one of the Brehon Lawsjl, though of what period ceoms uncertain, both of carpenters and millwrights. Another of these Irish Laws, said to be of great antiquity, shows that the practice of irrigating lands must have been in use when it was enacted : as it thus regulates the common * " In ipso loco dara et religiosa civitas in honore S. Coemgeni (Kevin) crevit quae nomine prajdiclaa vallis in qua ipsa est Gleandaloch vocatur." — Quoted by Usher, from a life of St. Kevin, Eccles. Primord. 956. t It was for this reason that tliey appeared to Giraldus as not yet in his time emerged from the pastoral life: — '• Gens agriculture labores aspernans, a primo pastoralis vitee vivendi modo non recedens." That Spenser held it to be no less a cause than a sign of the want of civilization, appears from the following strong sentences :— " To say truth, though Ireland be by na- ture accounted a great soil of pasture, yet had I rather have fewer cows kept, and men better mannered, than to have such huge increase of cattle, and no increase of good conditions. I would, therefore, wish that there were some ordinances made amongst them, that whosoever keepeth twenty kine should keep a plough going ; for, otherwise, all men would fall to pas- turage, and none to husbandry." — F^iew of the State of Ireland. X Annal. iv. Mag. ad ann. 647.— See Dr. O'Connor's note on the passage. § The introduction of water-mills into the British Isles is attributed, by Whitaker, to the Romans ; and from hence, he says, this sort of mill is called Melin in the British, and Muilan or Muiland in the Irish. II Collectan. Hibern. No. 1. AGRICULTURE AND THE ARTS. 271 right in the water :— *' According to the Fenechas, the com- mon right of drawn water belongs to the land from which it is drawn. It is therefore that all require that it shall run freely the first day over the entire land. For right in the water be- longs to none but in the land from which it is drawn."* The biographer of St. Columba, besides employing the terms ploughing and sowing, mentions as the result, on one occasion, of tlie abbot's prayers and intercessions, that they had an abundant harvest The discipline of the monks, enjoining herbs and pulsef as their chief food, would lead to the culture of such productions in their gardens. The mention of honey- comb, too, as part of the monastic diet, concurs, with some cu- rious early laws on the subject|, to prove their careful attention to the rearing of bees; and not only apple-trees, but even vines, are said to have been cultivated by the inmates of the monasteries. Of the skill of the workers in various metals at this period, as well as of the lapidaries and painters, we are told wonders by the hagiologists, who expatiate at length on the staff of St. Patrick, covered with gold and precious stones, the tomb of St. Brigid at Kildare, surmounted by crowns of gold and silver, and the walls of the church at the same place, adorned with holy paintings. But it is plain that all this luxury of religious ornament, as well as those richly illuminated manuscripts which Dr. O'Connor and others have described, must all be referred to a somewhat later period. Of the use of war-chariots among the Irish^, in the same manner as among the Britons and the Greeks, some notice has already been taken ; and this sort of vehicle was employed also by the ancient Irish for the ordinary purposes of travelling. The self-devotion of St. Patrick's charioteer has made hiin memorable in our history ; and both St. Brigid and Columba performed their progresses, we are told, in the same sort of * O'Reilly on the Brehon Laws, Trans. Royal Irish Academy, vol. xiv. t " Cibus sit villis et vespertinus monachorum, satietatem fugiens et potus ebrietatem, ut et sustineat et non noceat. Olera, legumina, farinae aquis mixtffi," &c. — Columban. Reg. cap. 3. t " Whoever plunders or steals bees from out a garden or fort is subject to a like penalty as if he steal them out of a habitation, for these are ordained of equal penalty by law." Again, " Bees in an inclosure, or fort, and in a garden, are of the same account (as to property, penalty, &c.) as the wealth, or substance of a habitation." Extracted from inedited Brehon Laws, in an Essay on the Rise and Progress of Gardening in Ireland, by J. C. Walker. See Antholog. Hibern., vol. i., and Trans. Royal Acad. vol. iv. § The king of the Irish Crutheni, or Picts, is described by Adamnan as escaping from the field Of battle in a chariot :— " Gluemadmodum victus cur- rui insidens evaserit." 272 - HISTORY OF IRELAND. carriage. There is also a canon of the synod attributed to St. Patrick, which forbids a monk to travel from one town to an- other, in the same chariot with a female.* Reference has been made, in the course of this chapter, to the early Brehon Laws, and could we have any dependence on the date assigned to such of these laws as have been published, or even on the correctness of the translations given of them, they would unquestionably be very important documents. Of those published by Vallancey it has been pronounced, by a writer not over-credulousf, that they bear strong internal marks of antiquity ; and while the comment on the several laws is evidently, we are told, the work of some Christian juris- consults, the laws themselves wear every appearance of being of ancient, if not of Pagan, times. No mention occurs in them of foreigners, or of foreign septs, in Ireland. The regulations they contain for the barter of goods, and for the payment of fines by cattle and other commodities, mark a period when coin had not yet come into general use ; while the more modem date of the Comment, it is said, is manifested by its substi- tuting, for such primitive modes of payment, gold and silver taken by weight. Mention is made in them, also, of the Tal- tine Games and the Convocation of the States ; and it is for- bidden, under the pain of an Eric, to imprison any person for debt during these meetings. With the single exception, perhaps, of the absence of any allusion to foreigners, there is not one of these alleged marks of antiquity that would not suit equally well with the state and condition of Ireland down to a period later, by many centuries, than that at which we are arrived ; the payment by cattle and the law of the Eric having been retained, as we shall find, to a comparatively recent date. With respect to tlie manner in which the Irish laws were delivered down, whether in writing or by tradition, there has been much difference of opinion ; and the poet Spenser, in general well informed on Irish subjects, declares the Brehon Law to be " a rule of right unwritten." Sir John Davies, too, asserts that " its rules were learned rather by tradition than by reading." This is evidently, however, an erroneous repre- sentation. Without referring to the Collections of Judgments, or Codes of Laws, which are said to have been compiled under some of the heathen princes, we find, after the introduction of Christianity, the Great Code, or Seanchas-More, as it was called, drawn up with the aid, according to some writers, of Monachus et virgo ... in uno ciirru a villa in villam non discurrant. t Lcland, Hist, of Ireland, Preliminary Discourse. BREHON LAWS. 273 St. Patrick*, but supposed by others to have been of a much later date. In the seventh century, a body of the laws of the country was compiled and digested, we are told, from the scattered writings of former lawyers, by three learned brothers, the sons of O'Burechan, of whom one was a judge, the second a bishop, and the third a poet.f The great number, indeed, of Irish manuscripts still extant, on the subject of the Brelion Law^s, sufficiently refutes the assertion of Spenser and others, that these laws were delivered down by tradition alone. In the very instance, mentioned by Sir John Davies, of the aged Brehon whom he met with in Fermanagh, the information given reluctantly by this old man, respecting a point of local law, was gained by reference to an ancient parchment roll, "written in fair Irish character," which the Brehon carried about with him always in his bosom.J The truth appears to be, that both tradition and writing were employed concurrently in preserving these laws ; the practice of oral delivery being still retained after the art of v^nriting them down was known ; and a custom which tended much to perpetuate this mode of tradition, was the duty imposed upon every Filea, or Royal Poet, to learn by heart the Brehon Law, in order to be able to assist the memory of the judge. § On the whole, whatever may be thought of the claims to a high antiquity of the numerous remains of the Brehon Law that have come down to us, of the immemorial practice of this form of jurisprudence among the ancient Irish, and of the fond, obstinate reverence with which, long after they had passed under the English yoke, they still continued to cling to it, there exists not the slightest doubt. In the fifth century, the Brehons were found by St. Patrick dispensing their then an- cient laws upon the hills; and, more than a thousand yearn after, the law-officers of Britain found in the still revered Brehon the most formidable obstacle to their plans. * Anno Christi 438 et regis Leogarii decimo, vetustis corlicibus aliisquo antiquis Hibernite monumentis undique conquisitis, et ad unum locum coii- gregatis, Hiberniaj Antiquitates et Sanctiones Legales" S. Patricii authoritale repurgata; et conscriptae sunt.— jinnal. Mag. IF. t Ware's Writers, chap. iv. 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"This voliimo has been lately published in England, as a part of Dr. Ijardner's Cabinet Cyclop.T(ija. and has received the unsolicited approbation of the most eminent lu'-n of science, and the most discriminating journals and reviews, in the British meUnpolis.— It is \\ ritten in a popular and intelligible style, entirely free from mathematical symbols, and (li.scncunibered as far as possible of tech- nical jjiirases." — Boston Trarcf/er. " Admirable in development ami clear in principles, and ospocially felicitous in illustration from familiar subjects." — Monthly Mag. OUTIJ^KS OF HISTORY, from tlif f:«ilicst period to the present time. A TREATISE ON HYDROSTATICS AND PNEUMATICS. By the Rev. D. Lardncr. With numerous engravings. " It f.illy s'lstniPrf the favorable opinion we have already expressed as to lliis valuable couipon;liiim of modern f-riiMice." — Ut. Gateltc. " Dr. T>ardner has made a good use of his ac BlancliLard* BRIDOEWATEB TREATISES. VIII. Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, by Wm. Prout, M.D.,F.R.S. THE FOLLOWING ARE PUBLISHED. ASTRONOMY AND GENERAL PHYSICS, considered with reference to Natural Theolog-y. By the Rev. William Whe- WELL, M. A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cam- bridge ; being Part III. of the Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation. In one vol. 12mo. " It is a work of profound investigation, deep research, distinguished alik« for the calm Christian spirit which breathes throughout, and the sound, irre- sistible argumentation which is stamped on every page."— Z)oiZy Intelli- gencer. " Let works like that before us be widely disseminated, and the bold, active, and ingenious enemies of religion be met by those, equally sagacious, alert and resolute and the most timid of the many who depend upon the few, need not fear the host that comes with subtle steps to 'steal their faith away,' "— JV. Y. American. " That the devoted spirit of the work is most exemplary, that we have here and there found, or fancied, room for cavil, only peradventure because we have been unable to follow the author through the prodigious range of his philo- sophical survey— and in a word, that the work before us would have made the reputation of any other man, and may well maintain even that of Professor WhewelV— Metropolitan. " He has succeeded admirably in laying a broad foundation, in the light of nature, for the reception of the more glorious truths of revelation ; and has produced a work well calculated to dissipate the delusions of scepticism and infidelity, and to confirm the believer in his faith." — Charleston Courier. " The known talents, and high reputation of the author, gave an earnest of excellence, and nobly has Mr. Whewell redeemed the pledge. — In conclusion, we have no hesitation in saying, that the present is one of the best works of its kind, and admirably adapted to the end proposed ; as such, we cordially recommend it to our readers." — London Lit. Gazette. " It is a work of high character."— J?os«on Recorder. A TREATISE ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF MAN, principally with reference to the supply of his wants, and the exercise of his intellectual faculties. By John Kidd, M. D., F. R. S., Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford ; being Part II. of the Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation. In one vol. 12mo. " It is ably written, and replete both with interest and instruction. The diffusion of such works cannot fail to be attended with the happiest effects in justifying ' the ways of God to man,' and illustrating the wisdom and good- ness of the Creator by arguments which appeal irresistably both to the reason and the feelings. Few can understand abstract reasoning, and still fewer rel- ish it, or will listen to it : but in this work the purest morality and the kindli- est feelings are inculcated through the medium of agreeable and useful infor- maUon." — Bait. Oaz. •' It should be in the hands of every individual who feels disposed to ' vindi- cate the ways of God to man.' "— JV. Y. Com. Adv. New Works, published by Carey, Lea, & Blanchard. BRIDGEWATER TREATISES. CHEMISTRY, MINERALOGY, AND THE FUNCTIONS OF DIGESTION, considered with reference to Natural The- ology, by William Prout, M. D. F. R. S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, being part eight of -the Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation. In 1 vol. 12mo. " For depth of investigation, extent of research and cogency of reasoning, this work will not suffer in comparison with any other of this admirable series. The deductions from the premises are strong and conclusive, and bear the impress of a calm, philosophic, and truly Christian spirit. The valuable scientific knowledge that may be derived from the Bridgewater Treatises, independent of their grand design — the illustration of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested in the creation — should secure them a wide circulation." — Bait. Gazette. ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. By the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D. D. ; being Part I. of the Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in Creation. In 1 vol. 12mo. " The volumes before us are every way worthy of their subject. It would seem almost supererogatory to pass any judgment on the style of a writer so celebrated as Dr. Chalmers. He is well known as a logician not to be baffled by any difficulties ; as one who boldly grapples with his theme, and brings every energy of his clear and nervous intellect into the field. No sophistry escapes his eagle vision — no argument that could either enforce or illustrate his subject is left untouched. Our literature owes a deep debt of gratitude to the author of these admirable volumes." — Lit. Gaz. THE HAND: ITS MECHANISM AND VITAL ENDOW- MENTS, AS EVINCING DESIGN. By Sir Charles Bell, K. G. H, ; being Part IV. of the Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation. In one vol. 12mo. " In the present treatise it is a matter of the warmest satisfaction to find an anatomist of Sir Charles Bell's great eminence, professing his contempt for the late fashionable doctrines of materialism held by so many anato- mists, and now coming forward to present the fruits of his wide researches and great ability in a treatise so full of curious and interesting matter, expressly intended to prove, by the examination of one particular point, that design which is imprest on all parts of variotis animals which in some degree answer the purpiose of the Hand ; and has shown that the hand is not the source of contrivance, nor consequently of man's superiority, as some materialists have raamtained. " To this he has added some very valuable remarks, showing the uses of Pain, and he has illustrated the work with a variety of the most admirable and interesting wood cuts." — British Magazine. ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY, considered with reference to Natural Theology. By Peter Mark Roget, M. D. Being Treatise five of the Bridgewater Series : illustrated with numerous cuts. New Works, published by Carey, Lea, & Blanchard. THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC, including notices of Brazil, Chili, Bolivia, and Peru. In one vol. By an Offi- cer of the United States' Navy. " The work embraces copious descriptions of the countries visited ; graphic accounts of the state of society ; brief notices of the history, state of the arts, climate, and the future prospects of those interesting parts of our conti- nent ; respecting which the citizens of the United States are supposed to care much, but know so little." " Full of novelty and valuable details. The American reader will greatly add to his fund of iaeas concerning South America by its perusal." — Chronicle. " The author's graphic abilities — the pure acquaintance he displays with the Spanish language, renders his book at once pleasing and useful." — Gaz. " Such contributions to our stock of ideas and literature, deserve a warmer welcome and wider patronage than the common-place or extravagant fictions of the day." — National Gazette. "Much new and valuable information, imbodied in excellent language; there cannot be a moment's doubt of its popularity." — Jour, of Belles Lettres. LETTERS ON THE UNITED STATES. Letters to a Gen tleman in Germany, written after a trip from Philadelphia to Niagara, edited by Dr. Francis Lieber, in one vol. 8vo. " The mingling of anecdote, the abrupt breaks, personal narration, illustrative comparisons, and general style of the work, give it an interest that will ensure to the book general perusal— while the philosophical tone which occasionally pervades its pages cannot fail of commending them to the approval of the reflecting." — U. S. Gazette. " We have read this work with great satisfaction and interest. It abounds with characteristic anecdotes, graphic descriptions, and principles which do honour to the head and heart of the author." — JVat. Intelligencer. The style of these Letters is, in general, very good ; sometimes poetical and eloquent. "Here is a well written series of Letters, by a learned German, who has lived long enough among us, it appears, to examine the peculiarities of our government and habits, with the impartial eye of a philosopher." — Baltimore paper. " This is a very agreeable book— rambling, sprightly, anecdotical, and withal, interspersed with much useful and practical information, and keen and accurate observation." — JVeio York American. SKETCHES OF SOCIETY IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. By C. S. Stewart, M. A., Chaplain of the United States' Navy, author of" A Visit to the South Seas," " A Residence in the Sandwich Islands," &c. In two vols. 12mo. " Some of his sketches are beautiful descriptions ; others are finished pictures. The charm of these volumes consists in the distinct view which the author gives us of the scenery, the country, the cities and towns, the aristocracy, the churches,— in one word, the thousand particulars, which, together, constitute what is called the state of society."— iicZi^iotts Telegraph. " We have seldom perused a work with so pleasant an interest. The contents are various and racy, epistolary transcripts of the author's mind, published just as written, without revisions, and with all the gloss and freshness of first and original impressions about them. The work is full of living pictures." " His observations on men and manners, in his description of the diflferent scenes to which his pilgrimage was extended, are given in a style of the moBt flowing and attractive kind."— A*. Y. Courier. THIRTY YEARS' CORRESPONDENCE, between John Jebb, D. D. F. R. S., Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe ; and Alexander Knox, Esq., M. R. I. A. Edited by the Rev. Charles Forster, B. D., perpetual curate of Ash next Sandwich; formerly, domestic Chaplain to Bishop Jebb. In two vols. 8vo. New IVorks, piiMislied by Carey, Lea, & Blaucliard* BRIDGEW^ATER TREATISES. This series of Treatises is published under the following circum- stances: — The Right Honorable and Rev. Francis Henry, Earl of Bridge- water, died in the month of February, 1825 ; he directed certain trus- tees therein named, to invest in the pubUc funds, the sum of eight thousand pounds sterling; this sum, with the accruing dividends thereon, to be held at the disposal of the President, for the time being, of the Royal Society of liondon, to be paid to the person or persons nominated by him. The Testator farther directed, that the person or persons selected by the said President, should be appointed to write, print and publish one thousand copies of a work, on the Power, Wis- dora, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation ; illustra- ting such work, by all reasonable arguments, as, for instance, the va- riety and formation of God's creatures in the Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Kingdoms ; the effect of digestion, and, thereby, of conver- sion ; the construction of the hand of man, and an infinite variety of other arguments ; as also by discoveries, ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and the whole extent of literature. He desired, moreover, that the profits arising fi*om the sale of the works so published, should be paid to the authors of the works. The late President of the Royal Society, Da vies Gilbert, Esq. re- quested the assistance of his Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of the Bishop of London, in determining upon the best mode of carrying into effect, the intentions of the Testator. Acting with their advice, and with the concurrence of a nobleman immediately connect- ed with the deceased, Mr. Davies Gilbert appointed the following eight gentlemen to write separate Treatises in the different branches of the subjects here stated: — I. The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellec- tual Constitution of Man, by the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D. D., Pro- fessor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. II. The adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man, hy John Kidd, M. D., F. R. S., Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford. III. Astronomy and General Physics, considered with reference to Natural Theology, by the Rev. Wm. Whewell, M.A., F.R.S., Fel- low of Trinity College, Cambridge. IV. The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design, by Sir Charles Bell, K. H., F. R. S. V. Animal and Vegetable Physiology, by Peter Mark Roget, M. D., Fellow of and Secretary to the Royal Society. VI. Geology and Mineralogy, by the Rev. Wm. Buckland, D. D., F. R. S., Canon of Christ Church, and Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford. VII. The History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals, by the Rev. Wm. Kirby, M.A., F.R.S. THE PEOFIiE'S XiZBRARY. " The editors and publishers should receive the thanks of the present generation, and the gratitude of posterity, for being the first to prepare in this language what deserves to be entitled not the ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA, but the people's library." — N. Y. Courier and Enquirer. Just Published, by Carey, Lea, and Blancliard, And sold in Philadelphia by E. L. Carey ^ A. Hart ; in New- York by G. & C.^ H. Carvill ; in Boston by Carter ^ Hendee ; in Baltimore by E. J. Coale, 4- W. ^ J. Neal ; in Washington by Thompson ^ Homans ; in Richmond by J.H. Nash; in Savannah by WT T. Williams; in Charleston by W. H. Berrett ; in New-Orleans by W. MKean ; in Mobile by Odiorne (Jr Smith ; and by the principal booksellers throughout tlie Union. THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA AMERICANA : A POPULAR DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE, HISTORY, AND POLITICS, BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME, AND INCLUDING A COPIOUS COLLECTION OF ORIGINAL ARTICLES IN AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY: On the basis of the Seventh Edition of the German CONVERSATIONS-LEXICON. Edited by FRANCIS LIEBER, ASSISTED BY EDWARD WIGGLESWORTH and T. G. BRADFORD, EsaRS. IN THIRTEEN LARGE VOLUMES, OCTAVO, PRICE TO SUBSCRIBERS, BOUND IN CLOTH, TWO DOLLARS AND A HALF EACH. EACH VOLUME WILL CONTAIN BETWEEN 600 AND 700 PAGES. "THE WORLD-RENOWNED CONVERSATIONS-LEXICON."— ^din&ttr^-A Review. " To supersede cumbrous Encyclopaedias, and put within the reach of the poor- est man, a complete library, equal to about forty or fifty good-sized octavos, em- bracing every possible subject of interest to the number of 20,060 m all— provided he can spare either from his earnings or his extravagancies, twenty cents a week, for three years, a library so contrived, as to be equally suited to the learnec' and the unlearned,— the mechanic— the merchant, and the professional man."— JV*. Y. Courier and Inquirer. " The reputation of this valuable work has augmented with each volume ; and if the unanimous opinion of the press, uttered from all quarters, be true, which in this instance happens to be the case, it is indeed one of the best of publica- tions. It should be in the possession of every intelEigent man, as it is a library in itself, comprising an immense mass of lore upon almost every possible sub- ject, and in the cheapest possible form." — JV*. Y. Mirror. "Witnesses from every part of the country concurred in declaring lliat the EncyclopaBdia Americana was in a fair way to degrade the dignity of learning, and especially the learning of Encyclopjedias, by making it too cheap— that the multitudes of all classes were infatuated with it in saying in so many words from the highest to the lowest, ' the more we see of the work the better we like it.' " — JV. Y. Courier and Inquirer. " The articles in the present volume appear to us to evince the same ability and research which gained so favorable a reception for the work at its com- mencement. The .Appendix to the volume now before us, containing an account of the Indian Languages of .America, must prove highly interesting to the reader in this country; and it is at once remarkable as a specimen of history and phi- lology. The work altogether, we may again be permitted to observe, reflects distinguished credit upon the literary and scientific character, as well as the scholarship of our country." — Charleston Courier. "The copious information which this work affords on American subjects, fully justifies its title of an American Dictionary; while at the same time the extent, variety, and felicitous disposition of its topics, make it the most conve- nient and satisfactory Encyclopaedia that we have ever seen.''— JSTationalJournal. " If the succeeding volumes shall equal in merit the one before us, we may confidently anticipate for the work a reputation and usefulness which ought to secure for it the most flattering encouragement and patronage."— FederaZ Gazette. " The variety of topics is of course vast, and they are treated in a manner which is at once so full of information and so interesting, that the work, instead of being merely referred to, might be regularly perused with as much pleasure as profit." — Baltimore American. "We view it as a publication worthy of the age and of the country, and can- not but believe the discrimination of our countrymen will sustain the publish- ers, and well reward them for this contribution to American Literature."— £a/- timore Patriot. " It reflects the greatest credit on those who have been concerned in its pro- duction, and promises, in a variety of respects, to be the best as well as the most compendious dictionary of the arts, sciences, history, politics, biography, &c. which has yet been compiled. The style of the portion we have read is terse and perspicuous; and it is really curious how so much scientific and other in- formation could have been so satisfactorily communicated in such brief limits." — JV*. Y. Evening Post. " A compendious library, and invaluable book of reference."— JV. Y. American. " Those who can, by any honest modes of economy, reserve the sum of two dollars and fifty cents quarterly, from their family expenses, may pay for this work as fast as it is published ; 'and we confidently believe that they will find at the end that they never purchased so much general, practical, useful information at so cheap a rate." — Journal of Education. " If the encouragement to the publishers should correspond with the testimony in favor of their enterprise, and the beautiful and faithful style of its execution, the hazard of the undertaking, bold as it was, will be well compensated ; and our libraries will be enriched by the most generally useful encyclopedic diction- ary that has been offered to the readers of the English language. Full enough for the general scholar, and plain enough for every capacity, it is far more con- venient, in every view and form, than its more expensive and ponderous prede- cessors " — American Farmer. "The high reputation of the contributors to this work, will not fail to insure it a favorable reception, and its own merits will do the rest."— StWijnan's Journ. " The work will be a valuable possession to every family or individual that can afford to purchase it ; and we take pleasure, therefore, in extending the knowledge of its merits."— JVotiono/: Intelligencer. "The Encylopsedia Americana is a prodigious improvement upon all that has gone before it ; a thing for our country, as well as the country that have it birth, to be proud of; an inexhaustible treasury of useful, pleasant, and familiar learn- ing on every possible subject, so arranged as to be speedily and safety referred to on emergency, as well as on deliberate inquiry; and better still, adapted to the understanding, and put within the reach of the multitude. * * * The Ency- clopsdia Americana is a work without which no library worthy of the name can hereafter be made up."— yianftcc. LARDNER'S CABINET CYCLOPAEDIA. HISTORY OF ENGIiAND. By Sir James Mackintosh. In 8 Vols. Vols. 1, fi and 3 publislied. " In the first volume of Sir James Mackintosh's History of England, we find enough to warrant the anticipations of the public, that a calm and lumin- ous philosophy will difiiise itself over the long narrative of our British His- tory."— Edinburgh R&view. " In this volume Sir James Mackintosh fully developes those great powers, for the possession of which the public have long given him credit. The resirit is the ablest commentary that has yet appeared in our language upon some of the most important circumstances of English History."— ^«/a«. "Worthy in the method, style, and reflections, of the author's high reputa- tion. We were particularly pleased with his high vein of philosophical sen- timent, and his occasional survey of contemporary annals." — JVat. Gazette. " If talents of the highest order, long experience in politics, and years of application to the study of history and the collection of information, can com- mand super'iority in a historian. Sir James Machintosh may, without reading this work, be said to have produced the best history of this country. A peru- sal of the work will prove that those who anticipated a superior production, have not reckoned in vain on the high qualifications of the author."— Cowrtcr. THE HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, to the Battle of Waterloo. By T. C. Grattan. " It is but justice to Mr. Grattan to aay that he has executed his laborious task with much industry and proportionate effect. Undisfigured by pompous nothingness, and without any of the affectation of philosophical profundity, his style is simple, light, and fresh— perspicuous, smooth, and harmonious."— La Belle JissembUe. " Never did work appear at a more fortunate period. The volume before us is a compressed but clear and impartial narrative."— Zit. Oaz, HISTORY OF FRANCE. By Eyre Evans Crowe. In 3 vols. " His history of France is worthy to figure with the works of his associates, the best of their day, Scott and Mackintosh."— JkroJ^y Carey, lica, &> Blancliard. PENCIL. SKETCHES, OR OUTLmES OF CHARACTER AND MANNERS. BY MISS LESLIE. " Look here upon this picture, and on ihia.''—Shakspeare. Contents. — The Escorted Lady. A Pic-Nic at the Sea- Shore. The Miss Vanlears. Country Lodgings. Sociable Vis- iting. Frank Finlay. The Travelling Tin-man. Mrs. Wasli- ington Potts. Uncle Philip. The Revolutionary Officer. Poland and Liberty. The Duchess and Sancho. The Clean Face. Lady Jane Grey. In one volume, 12mo. " Miss Leslie hits, skilfully and hard, the follies, foibles, and exceptionable manners of our meridian. She is perhaps too severe ; she draws too broadly, but she is always more or less entertaining, and conveys salutary lessons even in her strongest caricatures. Her subjects, incidents, and persons, are happily chosen for her purposes." — jsTational Oaictte. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME. BY VICTOR HUGO. With a Sketch of the Life and Writings of the Author, by Frederick Shoberl. In 2 vols. 12mo. " Victor Hugo is a most powerful writer — a man of splendid genius» and gigantic grasp of mind." — Court Journal. ROOKWOOD— A ROMANCE. BY W. HARRISON AINSWORTH. From the second London edition. In 2 vols. 12mo. "This is one of the most spirited and romantic of ' the season's' produc- tion. Full of life and fire, it excites the reader and carries him onward — much as the true heroine of the tale, the mare Black Bess, does the true hero of it, the robber Turfin — with mingled sensations of terror and delight. It is a wild story, told with exceeding skill, and wrought up to the highest pitch of which so singular a subject is capable. — The book is an excellent one, and the author may take a high station among the romance writers of our time." — New Monthly Magazine. VATHEK.— AN ORIENTAL TALE. BY MR. BECKFORD, AUTHOR OF ITALY, &C. " A very remarkable performance. It continues in poBsession of all the celebrity it once commanded."— Qj/ntr/eWy Review, 1834. New Works, puMlslied l>y Carey, Lea, &- Blancliard* THE MAGDALEN AND OTHER TALES. By Sheridan Knowles, Author of The Wife, Hunchback, &c. In 1 volume, ISnfio. THE INSURGENTS. An Historical Tale. In 2 volumes, 12mo. JULIAN FARQUHARSON, or the CONFESSIONS OF A POET In 2 volumes, 12mo. HORSE-SHOE ROBINSON. A TALE OF THE TORY ASCENDENCY, BY THE AUTHOR OF SWALLOVir BARN. IN 2 VOLS. 12mO. AURUNGZEBE; A TALE OF ALRASCHID. An Eastern Tale. In 2 volumes 12ma THE CANTERBURY TALE BY SOPHIA AND HARRIET LEE. "There are fine things in the * The Canterbury Tales.' Nothing of Scott's is finer than 'The German Tale.' I admired it when a boy, and have con- tinued to like what I did then. This, I remember, particularly affected me." — Lord Byron. " To read the Canterbury Tales of the Misses Lee once more, is a species of temporary regeneration. There is scarcely any educated person of this cen- tury who has not, at some time or other, of youth, drawn a sincere pleasure from these pages. The different tales have been to many like turning down a leaf in life ; we can find our place again in juvenile existence by the asso- ciations connected with them. The Officer's Tale, perhaps, was read on some sunny bank in a pleasant land — a stolen pleasure. The Young Lady's Tale un- folded all its intricacy on some fair sofa of a well-remembered apartment. On the German Tale, perhaps, two hearts beat in unison, trembled in harmony, and, when sharing a mutual agitation, two heads bent over the mystic page, they turned round to see each other's fright reflectedin well-known and well- loved features. Even novvw« feel a shiver running over the frame, as we call to mind the fearful whisper of the name of Kruitzner, amidst the silent throng of a kneeling congregation in the cathedral. Such a memoria technica has its charm ; and we may be pardoned for approaching this number of ' The Standard Novels' with feelings of far more interest than we take up any new novel of the day." — Spectator. THE MAYOR OF WIND GAP. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE o'lIARA TALES. MY COUSIN NICHOLAS. 2 Vols. New Works, puMisIied l>y Carey, lica, &- Blancliard. LEGENDS OF THE LIBRARY AT LILIES. BY THE LORD AND LADY THERE. In 2 vols. 12mo. "Two delightful volumes, various, graceful, with the pathos exquisitely relieved by gaiety; and the romantic legend well contrasted by the lively sketch from actual existence."— itterary Gazette. " The author of these volumes merits much higher praise than most of the pretenders to the palm of genius." — Bait. American. FRANKENSTEIN, OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS. BY MRS. SHELLEY. In 2 VOLUMES, 12mO.* " The romance of a child of genius. '—Canning. '• One of those original conceptions that take bold of the public mind at once and for ever." — Moore's Life of Byron. "Certainly one of the most original works that ever proceeded from a female pen." — Literary Gazette. " This work will be universally acceptable."— .^t/as. " Perhaps there is no modern invention which has taken more thorough hold of the popular imagination than Frankenstein."— 5peciator. WILL WATCH, OR THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NAVAL OFFICER. BY THE AUTHOR OF CAVENDISH, &C. 3 VOLS. 12mO. THE PRINCESS. BY LADY MORGAN, AUTHOR OF FLORENCE MACARTHY o'dONNELL, &.C. 2 vols. 12mo. THE MOST UNFORTUNATE MAN IN THE WORLD. BT CAPTAIN CHAMIER, AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF A SAILOR, &C. 2 VOLS. 12mO. TPIE MODERN CYMON. From the Jean of C. Paul de Kock, Author of Andrew the Savoyard, &c. In 2 vols. 12mo. " De Kock is quite unrivalled in his sketches of Parisi'in society. There is much character and spirit thrown into the translation, aim the dialogues are excellent."— Z,i^ Gazette. " A cood translation of a clever work. Paul de Kock paints to the life the bourgeois of Paris."— .^tAcnaum. "We cannot withhold our applause of the subtle spirit of fun, the fine dramatic tact, and the natural portraiture of character."— ^iZas. New WorkS) pulilislied by Carey, I Blancliard* THE WONDROUS TALE OF ALROY. THE RISE OF ISKANDER. BY D'ISRAELI, AUTHOR OF VIVIAN GREY, THE YOUNG DUKE, CONTARINI FLEMING, &C. &C. &C. TWO VOLUMES, 12mo. LOVE AND PRIDE. A NOVEL. BY THE AUTHOR OF SAYINGS AND DOINGS. In 2 vols. 12mo. NEWTON FORSTER, OR THE MERCHANT SERVICE. BY THE AUTHOR OF PETER SIMPLE, &C. In 2 vols. 12rao. THE BUCCANEER, A TALE, BY MRS. S. C. HALL, AUTHOR OF "SKETCHES OF IRISH CHARACTER," &C. In 2 vols. 12mo. From the 3d London edition. "This work belongs to the historic school; but it has that talent which bestows its own attraction on whatever subject its peculiar taste may select." —Lit. Gazette. " An admirable historical romance, full of interest, and with many new views of character. The plot is extremely well conceived, very artful and progressing, the story never flags, and you open at once upon the main inter- est." — JVew Monthly Magazine. TYLNEY HALL—A novel. By Thomas Hood, Author of the " Comic Annual," &c. In 2 vols. 12mo. " At last, after having been on the look-out for this long promised novel, with much such impatience as the schoolboy watches for the cuckoo, who remaining unseen, still keeps him in quest of her, bv uttering some tantalizing note close in his neighbourhood. At last, we have fairly laid hold of this Will o' the Wisp of a book, the first of its kind, but we hope not the lust."— Atheneeum. CALAVAR; OR THE KNIGHT OF THE CONQUEST. BY DR. BIRD. 2 VOLS. 12mO. Ne^v WorkS) published "by Carey^ lica, d& Blancbard* NEW GIL BLAS, OR, PEDRO OF PENAFLOR. BY R. D. INGLIS, AUTHOR OF SPAIN IN 1830. IN 2 VOLS. 12mo. " The whole work is very amusing." — Literary Oazette. " Those who want a few hours of pleasant reading are not likely to meet with a book more to their taste."— Jlt/ieneBum. " The labor and power, as well as knowledge, displayed — the 'New Gil Bias' deserves to stand forth to the public view with every advantage. We have read these volumes with great delight." — Metropolitan. EBEN ERSKINE, OR, THE TRAVELLER. BY JOHN ©ALT, AUTHOR OF LAWRIE TODD, ENTAIL, &C. IN 2 VOLS. 12mo. " A clever and intelligent author. Tliere is a quaint humor and observance of character in his novels, that interest me very much ; and when he chooses to be pathetic, he fools one to his bent; for, I assure you, the 'Entail' beguiled me of some portion of watery humors, yclept tears, albeit unused to the melt- ing mood. He has a sly caustic humor that is very amusing." — Lord Byron to Lady Blessington. " One of the remarkable characteristics of Gait, is to be found in the rare power he possesses of giving such an appearance of actual truth to his narra tive, as induces the reader to doubt whether that which he is perusing, under the name of a novel, be not rather a stalsment of amusing facts, than an invented story." ROSINE liAVAL., BY MR. SMITH. An American Novel. In 1 volume, 12mo. " The peruial of a few pages of the work must impress every reader with the opinion that the writer is no ordinary person." — J^at. Oazette. " His pages abound with pas.sages of vigor and beaiity, with much fund for abstract thought; and with groups of incidents which not only fix the attention of the reader, but awake his admiration." — Phil. Gazette. " It is one of the most pleasing, chaste, and spirited productions that we have met with for a long time. We may claim it with pride as an American production."— .Ba/f. Oazette. CECIL HYDE.— A novel, in 2 vols. 12mo. " This is a new ' Pelham.' It is altogether a novel of manners, and paints with truth, and a lively, sketchy spirit, the panorama of fashionable life." —Alias. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JACK KETCH. IN ONE VOL. WITH PLATES New WorkS) pu1[>ljj3]ied by Carey, I Blancbard* THE LIBRARY OF ROMANCE, WHICH CONSISTS OF A SERIES OP ORIGINAL TALES, NOVELS, AND OTHER WORKS OF FICTION, BY THE MOST EMINENT WRITERS OF THE AGE, AND EDITED BY Leitch Ritchie, Esq. Vol. I. THE GHOST-HUNTER AND HIS FAMILY, by Mr. Banim, author of the O'Hara Tales, is universally acknow- ledged tt> be the most talented and extraordinary work that has issued from the press for many years. " Mr. Banina has put forth all the vigor that belongs to the old O'Hara Tales, and avoided the weakness that sullied his subsequent eSons."—Mhe- naum. " There is more tenderness, more delicacy shown in the development of female character, than we have ever before met with in the works of this powerful novelist. " Banim nover conceived a character more finely than the young Ghost-Hun- ter, Morris Brady. It is a bold and striking outline."— ./flwfAor qf Eugene Aram. Vol. VIII. WALDEMAR, A TALE OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. BY W. H. HARRISON, AUTHOR OF TALES OF A PHYSICIAN, dtC. Vol. II. SCHINDERHANNES, THE ROBBER OF THE RHINE, BY THE EDITOR. " It IS Ions since we have met with so bold, spirited, and original a story." — Literary Oazette. " We now once more recommend the work itself, and the series, of which it is a worthy volume, to the public." — Athenmum "Decidedly one of the best romances we have ever read." — Court Journal. " Mr. Ritchie's Tales sometimes amount to the sublime, either in the terri- ble exigency or the melting pathos of the event, or in the picturesque energy of the description.— Schinderhannes may be esteemed as the best work of he- tion for which we are indebted to his pen."— j3tZas. New Works, published l>y Carey, Lea, & Blanchard* Vol. ill WALTHAM, A NOVEL. " Certain we are that very few of our modern novels can produce a charac- ter more admirably drawn than that of Murdock Macara, and Johnson the quondam tutor ; Mr. Bolton and Hulson are sketches that no one but a man of talent could have conceived, and none but a master could have filled up."— London Monthly Magazine. " It is a publication of no ordinary merit, is written with considerable pow- er, and embodies a story of deep interest. The Library of Komance has already an extensive circulation, and deserves still greater. " The numbers published thus far, are devoted to works of the best descrip- tion, and are calculated to entertain without offending a single moral pre- cept." — Penn. Inquirer. *' There are some fine passages, and touches of strong descriptive powers of nature and characters." — Bait. Amer. Vol. IV. THE STOLEN CHILD, A TALE OF THE TOWN, BY JOHN GALT. " The autobiography in this volume is equal to Mr. Gait's best days, and even his subordinate characters are worthy to be recorded in the Annals of the Parish."— ./9tAe/ucMm. " The Stolen Child is a most cleverly managed story. " We do not think any one ever exceeded Mr. Gait in sketching national portraits— they are pre^rved as if for a museum of natural curiosities." — Lit. Oaz. " A story of considerable interest."— Pott. Oazette* Vol. V. THE BONDMAN, A TALE OF THE TIMES OF WAT TYLER. " A very picturesque and interesting story, and laid during a period which well deserves illustration."— ii«. Oaz. " One of those stirring narrations that give a picture of the times, and take along the reader with the events, as if he was indeed a part of what he read. This series of romances has thus far maintained its character for novelty and raciness, and while the whole is worthy of especial commendation, each num- ber is in itself a complete story."—?/. .S. Gazette. " The narrative embraces one of the most interesting periods of English his- torv, and is full of life and spirit. The character of Wat Tyler is well depict- ed."— .Batt. OazcU«. Vol. VL THE SLAVE-KING, FROM THE "BUG-JARGAL" OF VICTOR HUGO. '* In this abridged tale from Victor Hugo, may the readers of wonderful in- cidents 'woo terror to delight' them. The attention is aroused, and maintain- ed to a frenzied state of excitement anxious to be satisfied with similar de- tails."— jJm. Sentinel. Vol. VII. TALES OF THE CARAVANSERAL THE KHAN'S TALE. BY J. B. FRAZIER. New Works, publislied Tl>y Carey, liea, &> Blancliard* Cooper's New Novel. THE HEADSMAN, A New Novel, by the Author of the Spy, Pilot, &c. In 2 vols. 12mo. THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER. BY THEODORE HOOK, AUTHOR OF SAYINGS AND DOINGS, &C. IN 2 VOLS. 12mo. " We proceed to assure the reader, who has it before him, that he will enjoy an intellectual treat of no mean order. The principal feature of its excel- lence is an all-engrossing interest, which interest is mainly attributable to the extreme vraisemblance of its incidents, and the fidelity with which each character supports its individuality. In it there is as much invention and originality as we have ever met with in a modern novel, be the author who he may." — Metropolitan. " The moral of the tale carries conviction as to the justness of its applica- bility, and the incidents flow as naturally as the stream of events in every- day life."— /6id. " Here is a novel from a deservedly popular author, written with great ease and sprightliness." — Athenoiuin. SWALLOW BARN, OR, A SOJOURN IN THE OLD DOMINION. In 2 vols. 12mo. " We cannot but predict a warm reception of this work among all persons who have not lost their relish for nature and probability, as well as all those who can properly estimate the beauties of simplicity in thought and expres- sion." — JVfeifl York Mirror. " One of the cleverest of the last publications written on this or the other Bide of the Atlantic." — JVezo York Courier and Enquirer. "The style is admirable, and the sketches of character, men, and scenery, so fresh and agreeable, that we cannot help feeling that they are drawn from nature." THE DOMINIE'S LEGACY, Consisting of a Series of Tales illustrative of the Scenery and Manners of Scotland. In 2 vols. 12mo. *' These pages are pictures from scenes whose impress of truth tells that the author has taken them as an eye-witness; and many are rich in quiet, sim- ple pathos, which is evidently his forte." — Literary Gazette, GALE MIDDLETON, A Novel, by Horace SMirn, Author of Brarnbletye House, &.c In 2 vols. 12mo. TREVALYAN, A Novel, by the Author of Marriage in High Life. In 2 vols. New Works, pii1>lisIiLed l>y Carey, Lea, & Blauchard* DELOKAINE, A Novel, in 2 Vols. BY W. GODWIN, AUTHOR OF CALEB WILLIAMS, &C. &C. " We always regarded the novels of Godwin as grand productions. No one ever more forcibly portrayed the workings of the mind, whether it were in its joyous hilarity of happiness, or in the sublime agonies of despair. His tales, if we may so express it, have each but one character, and one end ; but that character, how all-absorbing in interest, and how vividly depicted; and that end, how consistent with its preliminaries, how satisfactory, and how beauti- ful !" — Metropolitan. FORTUNES OF PERKIN WARBECK.— a romance. BY MRS. SHELLEY, AUTHOR OF FRANKENSTEIN, &C. &C. 2 VOLS. 12mO. " We must content ourselves by commending the good use our fair author has made of her materiel, which she has invested with the grace and existence of her own poetical imagination. The character of Monia is a conception as original as it is exquisite." — Lit. Gazette. " The author of Frankenstein has made a romance of great and enduring interest. We recommend Perkin Warbeck to the public attention. It cannot fail to interest as a novel, while it may impart useful instruction as a history." — Conu Advertiser. ASMODEUS AT LARGE, A FICTION. BY BULWER, AUTHOR OF PELHAM, EUGENE ARAM, &C. " This is another admirable production from the prolific pen of Mr. Bulwer— distinguished by the same profundity of thought and matchless humor which are so happily combined in ail his writings." — Baltimore Weekly Messenger. " Our readers have felt that the impassioned pen of the author of Eugene Aram has not lost its power in these sketches." — JV. Y. American. pliss ^unitxCn Soijels, eomiJlete. EMMA, A Novel, by Miss Austen, 2 vols. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, 2 vols. MANSFIELD PARK, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, NORTHANGER ABBEY, PERSUASION, "There are few works of fiction, so acceptable in republication as the Nov- els of Miss Austen. " They never weary, their interest is never lost, for, as in the prints of Ho- garth, we find fresh matter for admiration upon every renewal of our ac- quaintance. In her works the scene is before us with all the reality of the world, and, free from the engrossment of acting a part in it, we discover points of interest which a divided attention had overlooked. " Her merit considered, her perfection in one style, Miss Austen is the worst appreciated Novelist of her time. The Quarterly Review, (to its honor be it remembered,) was the first critical authority which did justice to her merits, and that after the grave closed over her unconscious and modest genius. " It is remarkable that Scott, who noticed with praise many inferior authors, never mentioned Miss Austen." — Examiner. New "Worlts, piiWislied Tby Carey, I